It Takes a Team To Raise a Trainer
by TheSwingOfThings
Summary: One of my earliest memories is of my cousin showing me his team, and telling me how he'd found each one. For years after that, my starter and I would play trainer: she'd pretend to be something majestic and rare, and I'd be the awesome trainer who would catch her and show her the value of human friendship. In hindsight, I had no idea what being a trainer is actually like.
1. Snowflake

This is an anonymous trainer's story of how she caught and evolved her six teammates. There's no "journey" per se, she lives in a people-don't-go-on-journeys-but-they-still-train-pokemon kind of alternate universe.

Constructive criticism regarding any aspect is always appreciated.

My Starter

When I was four, I got a mareep for my birthday. I named her Snowflake. My parents tell me it was because I thought her wool looked like snow. So now, whenever anyone asks me about my first pokemon, I always describe her as "my ampharos" instead of calling her by name, otherwise they think she's an ice type.

My mom used to make clothes for me out of her wool. She'd spin the yarn with her donphan, and dye it with her vileplume. The red of the dye was exactly like her pokemon's petals, which inspired my mom to knit her vileplume's polka dot pattern into all my sweaters. And hats. And mittens. It got so pervasive that I'm pretty sure Snow thought the polka dots meant I had evolved until she evolved herself and my mom no longer had any wool to make vileplume sweaters with.

Snow evolved into a flaaffy on the night of the christmas parade when I was eight. A float passed by with all kinds of light-up pokemon, and she was so dazzled her tail light started glowing as brightly as she could manage, and when that wasn't bright enough, her entire body started glowing. As luck would have it, a local camera crew was filming right in front of us, and caught her evolution on camera. The next morning, Snowflake was on the news under the title "Merry Christmas and Flaaffy Holidays".

She evolved into an ampharos when I was eleven and waiting for the late bus. It was already dark out, and Snowflake was so hungry she was chewing on my coat. Not wanting to see my favorite coat destroyed, I dug out my lunchbox and gave her the rest of my food. After wolfing down every last crumb and licking the box for good measure, Snow moaned and curled up into a ball. She does this fairly often, it usually means her tummy hurts because she snuck a few batteries or light bulbs behind my back. I'd been trying to ignore her whenever it happens to avoid encouraging that behavior. I focused on the looking for the bus in order to not look at my pokemon, so I didn't notice a thing until her next moan was much lower and I turned around to see an ampharos sitting where my flaaffy had been.

I completely forgot about how I was supposed to be ignoring her, and threw my arms around Snow in my excitement. The jostling of her newly elongated neck was apparently the last straw, and with one last moan she threw up the contents of her stomach all over my coat. Ironically, my it would have been fine if Snow had been eating batteries like I suspected-they would have just bounced off my coat without issue. But it turns out she hadn't been sneaking battery snacks, so instead my coat got covered in ABC leftovers-and was completely ruined because of it.

When the bus finally arrived, Snowflake got to ride shotgun to keep her from throwing up more. She ended up staying at home for three days with a stomach bug she got from eating my food, but once she was better, I gave her a whole box of batteries to munch on and I haven't fed her leftovers since. I also switched to waterproof coats.


	2. Peanutwing

Wow, I was not expecting this to be so long. The style also seems very different from the last chapter, not to mention there's a lot more dialogue (read: there is dialogue), which isn't traditionally my strong point. Again, constructive criticism regarding any aspect is always welcome.

My Flyer

I never really understood why so many people actively dislike zubat. Yeah, they're everywhere, and they can be aggressive, but it's not like they're strong enough to do any real damage, and they seem to know they're weak, since they really only prey on little kids and their first pokemon (which they still typically lose to). This sort of zubat fighting had become a rite of passage among the second-graders, and we'd have competitions to see who could defeat the most in a week. Snow and I won several times, because for some reason, zubat kept fighting us. Most of my classmates would be attacked by one or two zubat a night, but we were averaging five.

When I asked my dad why the zubat kept attacking us, he told us that, with a few exceptions, pokemon follow a code. If we make a pokemon or their babies feel threatened, if we disturb them from sleeping or eating, or if we are careless and do something like step on their tail or destroy their home, the pokemon will attack us, and we shouldn't fight. I'm supposed to tell Snow to use Thunder Wave, and then we're supposed to run back to the nearest road or lit area so we don't get in any more trouble.

If we haven't done anything to antagonize the pokemon, that means it wants to fight for the sake of fighting. We can choose to engage or not, Dad said that until I catch more pokemon, I shouldn't accept unless I think Snow can easily win on her own, and even then if we start losing, she should light up her tail and my dad's noctowl will come help us.

After we learned why pokemon fight, we tried to be careful and only battle willing pokemon, which, nine times out of ten, were zubat. Not only that, both Snow and I started to notice something weird about the zubat we were fighting. A lot of them had a weird mark on their wing, like a peanut or a filled-in eight. Dad said he thought it was a birthmark, and it meant we were actually fighting the same zubat again and again. I asked why a pokemon would do that, especially since we always won, and he said it probably wanted me to train it. That's usually why otherwise unmolested pokemon attack: they want to see if you're a good trainer. If they attack multiple times, it means they're trying to get you to catch them. I said I didn't want to train a zubat. Dad told me I should tell that to the zubat, so it can look for a trainer who does.

The next night, Snow and I walked around as usual, and surprise surprise, we were attacked by a zubat with a peanut-shaped birthmark on its wing. Snow's wool started to glow, she was charging a thundershock as usual, but I put my hand on her horn to stop her. When her wool went out, she lit up her tail bright enough so we could see, but not bright enough to call dad's noctowl, and I looked at the zubat. It was fluttering in front of me, silent and blind.

"Hey, I don't want to train you. I mean, I bet you're nice, but I don't like zubat that much."

"Mareep," Snow bleated in agreement.

The zubat stayed silent for a moment, then it screeched and flapped off into the shadows. Snow and I both wandered home, pleased that we had done the right thing and let Peanutwing know he should look for another trainer.

We'd barely walked in the door when Dad's houndoom came bounding over, barking like she does when she smells a stranger. Snow's always been afraid of her, so she started to back against the wall. Just before she'd cornered herself, a little blue blur shot out from behind her and fluttered up toward the ceiling, shrieking incessantly and making the houndoom bark even louder.

The commotion attracted some of my parents' other pokemon, who crowded into the front hall to see what was happening. When they saw Peanutwing flying in circles around the ceiling lamp, they all tried to get it down, but nothing seemed to affect it. It blew away Mom's vileplume's Stun Spore with its wings (which instead ended up paralyzing-and thankfully shutting up-Dad's houndoom), it was completely unaffected by Dad's gengar's Mean Look, and it kept dodging Mom's donphan's Rollout at the last second.

After half an hour of trying, most of the household pokemon were incapacitated in some way (usually by one of vileplume's various powders), and Peanutwing was still flapping around my ceiling lamp unscathed. My parents had come down at this point, I could hear them looking through the phonebook for late-night pest control in the next room. Snow and I were lying next to each other on the carpet, staring up at our little poison poltergeist, wondering what to do.

 _He thought if he dodged, you'd think he was a coward._

The voice in my head startled me so badly I jolted off the floor, only to see that Dad's gothitelle had come down from his usual haunt in the attic to grace us with his presence.

 _You're impressed by the zubat's ability to dodge, and you're wondering why he never used it before. It's because he thought he'd be a coward if he avoided Snow's attacks,_ the gangly pokemon clarified. _He didn't want you to think he was afraid to take a hit, he wants you to know that._

I thought this nonsense would end sooner if I answered the zubat personally, so I answered aloud: "I don't think you're a coward, Peanutwing, but I still don't want to train you."

Dad's gothitelle had been staring at me this entire time with his usual blank expression. Now, his eyes were narrowed. _You don't like it because you want something better,_ his mental voice hissed, _you think what makes a pokemon valuable is what species it is or what moves it knows. This zubat likes you enough that he followed you home by clinging to your mareep and shocking himself with every step she took, he avoided dozens of attacks from much stronger pokemon so he could make sure you were ok, and he's been flying in circles around a lamp for ages just to stay close to you because even though you've been rude and callous, he_ _ **still**_ _wants to be your pokemon!_

I could feel the gothitelle's fury stinging me, making me feel guilty and bringing tears to my eyes. Snow noticed this, and headbutted my back gently. "Mar Mar".

I looked down at her. She was giving me the look she wears when I'm too tired to finish the bedtime story. I have never been able to resist that look.

"Really?" I hiccuped through the tears. "You want me to catch him too?"

She bobbed her head before nuzzling my hand. "Reep Mareep!"

My dad, his pokemon, my pokemon, all of them wanted me to catch this silly little zubat. Didn't I get a say in who I caught? Wasn't I supposed to be the one who chose my team? I sobbed as I thought that last part. It was like they didn't even care what I wanted, when this was supposed to be _my_ _first capture_.

 _Perhaps I was a bit too harsh before._ The gothitelle's voice was back in my head, sounding less angry this time. I kept sniffling.

 _I get angry when trainers don't want pokemon who want them because I was one of those pokemon who wanted a trainer, but no one wanted to train. Boys thought I looked like a girl, and girls didn't like that I was a boy, and everyone thought I looked creepy, so no one ever bothered with me, until your father came along. He heard me when I asked to be captured, and even though his classmates made fun of him for it, he caught me and trained me with the rest of his pokemon. I was so grateful that I poured every ounce of myself into being stronger for him, and soon the same kids who were making fun of your father for being willing to train a freaky-bow-boy were apologizing for misjudging us, and asking if I would be willing to be traded for this or that prized pokemon of theirs._

 _Those trainers didn't understand that the thing that made me strong, that gratitude toward and love of the only human who'd ever given me a chance, isn't something that can be traded for. Nor can it be bought, nor stolen. It has to be given, and it has to be earned. That zubat is giving you a chance to have a pokemon that loves you from the start, and who will love you until the end, all because you chose him. Don't turn that down, you won't get another chance._

I looked up at the zubat still flying around my ceiling. He hadn't slowed down in all that time, and he still wasn't even scratched. Maybe he was stronger than I'd thought. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all.

I walked over to where I'd dropped my backpack and rummaged through it until I'd found the pokeball I'd been saving since I turned seven. I'd been told to use it on someone special, because there were no backsies on a first capture. There would be no backsies on Peanutwing.

I gulped, and tried not to sound too scared.

"Hey Peanutwing, I think I should train you," I held out the pokeball and scrunched my eyes shut. There was an immediate whump, and the ball clicked closed without so much as a wiggle.

To this day, I'm still not sure whether Peanut (he apparently liked the name) actually counts as my first capture. He kindof captured himself. Also, yes, I was made fun of for catching a zubat, but not for very long. After Peanut confused some kids who'd insulted me into drawing on the walls and putting glue on the chairs (which earned them detention) everybody mysteriously stopped caring about my taste in first captures.

I learned a lot about battling from Peanut. Snow had always been able to attack or stall or stun as needed, so my first few years of training never had any specific strategy. But Peanut, Peanut would faint if you so much as looked at him funny. So whenever I battled with him, we only had one choice of strategy: don't get hit. It worked great in the beginning, but some of my classmates started to wise up to Peanut's tactics, and soon enough Peanut was fainting from an eevee's swift or a taillow's aerial ace, and we had to find ways to dodge the undodgeable, which turned out to be using an uncommanded double team to make a single copy, then hiding out of sight while the swift or aerial ace of faint attack never failed to miss the target the opponent was aiming for.

Peanut evolved into a golbat on the day I lost my glasses. It was one of those summer days when the ponyta were panting, and I was enjoying some much-needed pool time with my pokemon. Peanut was basking in a mini-pool I'd formed with my cupped hands, and Snow was off sulking in the shade, jealous that she couldn't join the fun. We stayed like this until the sun started to set, then we packed up our things and headed home.

We were halfway back when I realized I'd forgotten my glasses. I was going to camp the next day, and we were leaving before the pool opened for the next morning, so I told my mom and she turned the car around as fast as possible and all but shoved me out the door in the hopes that we could get there before dark. Snow, Peanut and I hurried over to the pool (and snuck over the gate since it was already closed), to check the ledge where I'd last seen them. They weren't there. We went into the bathrooms and checked the lost and found. They weren't in either gender's box, but Peanut did find a pair of goggles that he insisted on wearing despite having no eyes. They were too big for him and kept slipping upside down, which kinda made him look like he had a mouth like a wailmer. After checking every spot we could think of and a few we couldn't, we returned to the poolside to check the edge one last time. It had gotten dark in the time since we'd gone inside, so Snow lit up her tail and held it over the ledge. And that's when we saw something small and dark lying at the bottom of the pool.

Snow can't get in the water because every time she so much as puts a hoof in she shocks everything within a hundred yards. There was no one in the pool, but the aforementioned shocking problem meant that Snow had never learned how to swim, so she couldn't go in anyway.

I can go in water, and I can swim, but ever since I stayed up late watching a documentary on the depths of the ocean and saw a huntail lunge out at the camera, I've been terrified of swimming in dark or deep water. Even Snow's light wouldn't be enough to coax me down there.

That left Peanut, the blind zubat who would could only see with echolocation, which, when used at the bottom of a pool, was practically suicidal.

As I pondered how to quickly teach Snow to swim, I realized there was actually one other option: my mom owned a dewgong that she'd brought with her to enjoy the pool. I could go and ask to borrow her, and she could get my glasses for us. That was the smart choice. I turned to go and do this, when I heard a faint splash. Mr. I-love-my-trainer-so-much-I'll-kill-myself-getting-her-spectacles had decided to try finding my glasses blind and under eight feet of water.

I yelled at Snow to go get Mom, and she bounded off as fast as her little flaaffy legs would carry her. Without Snow's light or my glasses, I could barely see anything. I didn't know what to do. There were no lifeguards, I could hear Snow bleating in the same way she did when she got her head stuck between the railings, which meant she couldn't get my mom and even if I could get myself to swim down into the water, I might not be able to find Peanut before it was too late.

I was alone, I had no idea what to do, and I was basically blind.

Then, suddenly, I wasn't.

There was a glowing blob at the bottom of the pool. It was slowly getting bigger, and becoming less blobby. It hunched down toward the pool tiles for a moment before shooting up, and solidified into a larger, mouthier Peanut, with my glasses in his claws, his now-just-the-right-size goggles over his newly formed eyes, and either oxygen deprivation, a huge grin, or both all over his face.

Peanut flapped over to me and, with a delicacy I wouldn't have thought he'd have mastered yet, gently dropped my glasses into my hands. We walked back to the car (Peanut hit a tree, he was still getting used to navigating with both eyes and echolocation), disentangled Snow from the locked gate where she'd gotten stuck, hopped back over with an expert assist from Peanut's larger wings, explained everything to my now very concerned mother and her exponentially more concerned dewgong, and, after checking for forgotten items one last time, drove home.

Two days passed before I realized I'd left my favorite swimsuit at the pool.

Peanut spent two years as a zubat, but only two weeks as a golbat. We were at camp and enjoying ourselves doing camp things, especially meeting new people. Well, I was only especially enjoying meeting Xander, the kid who ran the radio station with his voltorb and chatot, who had eyes darker than a deerling's and a smile wider than Peanut's. Snow enjoyed his pokemon's company almost as much as I enjoyed his, so together she and I spent a lot of time running around camp, asking what songs people wanted to hear, and ferrying their requests to Xander at the station. Peanut...definitely could've cared less about Xander. Ever since he'd gone down to the deep end to get my glasses, he hadn't taken off those ratty goggles and seemed to want to spend every available moment swimming and showing off. If I wanted to go to the radio station, he'd tug my arm toward the swimming pool in the opposite direction. If Xander was around, he'd tug even harder. The one time I managed to drag him to the station with me he wouldn't stop screeching. Xander's vice was completely drowned out when he was supposed to be doing some announcements, and the camp thought Peanut's shrieking was some uber-violent screamo song, which got Xander in trouble for playing music that was age-inappropriate. I told Peanut we should spend some time apart after that, and he swam in the pool while I hung out in the radio station with Snow until the last day of camp.

When it was time to leave, I gathered up my belongings and went to retrieve Peanut from the pool. Xander came out of his cabin as Snow and I walked by, and offered his hand to me. I held it all the way down to the pool.

I dragged Peanut flapping and shrieking from the water, went to be sure my counselor's machoke had put all of my things in the same pile, and spent the rest of the time waiting for my parents leaning against Xander's side, his hand wrapped around my shoulder.

My parents came and we left, and I waved goodbye to Xander with misty eyes as we drove off.

My parents chuckled over how adorable I was being, Snow hugged me the whole way home, but Peanut just stared out the window, his short ears pressed flat against his head. Even though he was trying to ignore me, I know he could hear me crying silently.

Once I was back in my house, I holed myself up in my room with Snow. We hugged each other and cried over Xander: me because I missed him so much, her because she knew I missed him (and I think she might have had a bit of a crush on the voltorb). Peanut went to swim in the sink.

I'd reached that point where I was tired from crying when I felt a light weight on my head. Peanut's feet were dry now, and he was staring down at me with concern.

"At least the other boy in my life is still here," I croaked. "You'll stay with me, right? Even though I was mean to you?" Upon hearing this, Peanut broke into his widest grin, and bent down to upside-down-nuzzle my nose.

I sniffled a bit, and couldn't help smiling. I was knee-deep in pre-teen melodrama and as far as I was concerned, my world was ending, but I just couldn't help myself: Peanut's smiles were infectious. Then, once he got me smiling, Peanut started to do that staccato shrieking that approximated laughter, which made me laugh too. He shrieked faster, and in my fatigue, I laughed harder and felt better, until finally I was hysterical and ecstatic at the same time, and then Peanut started glowing.

This was the first time I'd felt a pokemon evolve. It was much more ethereal than I'd imagined, like he turned into mist for a moment. Once that moment was over, my head suddenly felt a lot heavier. I realized this was because there was a huge purple bat monster pressing down on my face, and quickly stopped laughing and started trying to breathe again.


	3. Pocket Rooms

Ok, new plan. Well, _new_ new plan, anyway. I'm going to keep posting one pokemon's story at a time, but I'm going to split them into multiple chapters. Initially, I had thought the rest of the team's stories would only be as long as Snow's but for some reason my "let's not make a plan and write a story just to practice" piece is feeling more organized than the stories I actually _do_ plan out. Also, I know not many people review anymore, but on the off chance that you do, I have a question. I had an idea for another story using this character and team. Would you want to see that?

After Peanut evolved, I didn't catch anything for a couple of years. That winter, Snow had become an ampharos, and it took me a while just to adjust to owning two fully evolved pokemon.

They ate so much we ran out of food a few times after they'd each evolved, they were so much stronger that even an accidental tap could leave a bruise, and both of them seemed to have aged years in a day. Snow went from acting like an eight year old to a teenager over night: she would change the channel to watch certain shows because she thought the pokemon actors were hot, she started to get really moody and would be hurt by silly things that never bothered her before, and her normal absentmindedness had been turned up to eleven. Peanut, meanwhile, had gone from being a child to a full-on adult in a matter of weeks. He stopped wanting to play as much (though he remained ever-ready to show off), and he seemed less invested in the fantasy stories I'd read to everyone before bedtime.

But the worst part was their new sizes. Snow had gone from being no higher than my hip to being ten centimeters taller than me in the span of a few nauseous seconds. After that, her growth slowed to a couple of centimeters a year, which meant she was always taller than me no matter how big a growth spurt I'd had. Peanut was no better. He'd gone from having a body the size of a toaster with a wingspan that was on par with most doorways to having a body the size of a child's wagon and a wingspan that wouldn't fit diagonally through a set of double doors with an extra high frame. His head was so big that shortly after evolving, the goggles he'd been wearing had snapped, and he'd spent the following weeks covering his face with his wings like he was afraid to view the world with naked eyes. Furthermore, my parents and I did some research on crobat and found that, unlike zubat and golbat, crobat have indeterminate growth. The largest one ever recorded had a body the size of a sofa and a wingspan wider than a house when he died.

Once we found that out, Mom immediately made an appointment with a flying type specialist to talk about how to deal Peanut's size. The expert told us that, being a domestic evolution along the lines of gengar and lopunny, Peanut's size would be determined both by how much he ate and how much he cared about his trainer. I shouldn't start neglecting him for fear he might get bigger, that would only make him needy and destructive. But a diet and exercise were necessary. Minimal sweets, low calorie foods that were high in fiber to make his body work harder to get the same energy, and training to carry a person in flight would all be important if I wanted Peanut to grow slowly. She also highly recommended we get a pocket room. We told her we had one, so she recommended an upgrade.

The pocket room was a little box that sat on the kitchen counter. When the box was opened, the person or pokemon doing so would be warped inside a holographic room that would create the impression of anything but the substance of nothing. Everybody used it for different things. Snow and I used it to play, imagining magical cities and exotic jungles and going on adventures to find the lost crystal of Wherever or tame an ancient legendary pokemon. My sister used it to figure out which outfit she would wear without having to try everything on; she'd just imagine wearing the clothes and she could see what they would look like. My parents used it to go on virtual vacations, Dad's were always ski trips and mountain climbing, while Mom would visit all the wonders of the modern and ancient world in that room. But nobody used-or needed-the room as much as the pokemon did. Pocket rooms can create an illusion of being in a much larger area than one actually is, so the faster, bigger, and bulkier pokemon would use it to stretch their legs and play around without the destruction that would come from doing that in any other part of the house. Mom's dewgong would imagine an ocean and swim for hours on end, her luxray created thunderous plains where she'd race the lightning bolts, Dad's houndoom made entire forests which she promptly burnt to cinders, and his avalugg practiced the delicate art of iceberg architecture. Their noctowl and altaria would go in together, and hold flying races from dawn until dusk and then all through the night.

Upgrading a pocket room wasn't exactly cheap, but it was definitely cheaper than replacing all the furniture if Peanut got restless and broke everything. And besides, we probably needed an upgrade anyway; our model was reliable, but everybody could tell it was getting old. Peanut, with his huge size and fast wingbeats, desperately needed a processing upgrade that could allow the room to accommodate such a massive and fast pokemon who was only going to get more massive and faster as time went on. My parents and Dad's avalugg wanted a better graphics card, so the leaves in the trees, the bricks in the buildings, and the snow in the sky could all feel more realistic. Snow and I wanted better sound processing, everything always sounded somewhat tinny in the old room. And my sister and her mienfoo wanted a better case for the outside of the room: the old color clashed with the kitchen and had been driving them both crazy.

We ended up getting all of it, plus an alarm that would alert the user to problems in the outside world and a subdividing feature, which meant that multiple users could be in the room at the same time doing different things. The price was much higher than we'd been expecting. To cover the cost, all the humans agreed to not eat at restaurants and all the pokemon agreed to subcontract themselves for a month.

This was Snow and Peanut's first time working with the recruiters, so we had to get them certified and licensed. Our family's recruiters were a gregarious man named Arnold and his medicham: their job was to put an employer in contact with pokemon who could do whatever job was required, and then make sure the job was done well and the pokemon were paid what they were promised. They were also in charge of running the certification and renewal exams, which made sure the pokemon were capable of performing the task in question. They liked to work two-on-two with the trainer and one pokemon at a time. Snow went first.


	4. Gloominess and Interviews

We sat next to each other in Arnold and his medicham's office, me on a chair, and Snow on a large bean bag. Three of his walls were sparsely decorated, the olive paint only being interrupted by the occasional picture of his family or hanging spider plant. The fourth wall, though, was decorated with all manner of posters advertising various jobs and even full-time careers for pokemon. I tried to point them out to Snow, who looked at them for a few seconds before she became more concerned with swinging back and forth on her beanbag chair until she swang too far and fell flat on her face. That was the moment when Arnold and his medicham entered the office. They both stepped over my fallen pokemon with the ease of a sneasel, and settled down in their chairs on the other side of his desk.

"So, the last time I saw you two, you," he pointed at me, "were barely up to my knee, and you," he pointed to Snow, "were still a mareep. How time flies!" he chuckled.

I gave him my best-manners-smile and tried to subtly kick Snow, who jolted off the floor and back into a sitting position. "It's nice to see you both again."

"You as well! I hear you and," he glanced at his clipboard, "Miss Snowflake are helping your family make some money."

"Yeah, we got a new pocket room and everybody's chipping in. Besides, my parents thought my pokemon should get certified anyway, so we can start saving some money of our own."

Both Arnold and his medicham smiled as they heard this. "That's very wise of them. You all can save up some money for yourselves, and most of the jobs pokemon do give them a very good workout."

I glanced over at Snow. She had moved on to crossing her eyes and looking at her headlight. "Snow doesn't need exercise, she just needs to _focus._ " I hissed that last part, which got her attention. She snapped back to the world of the living, and apologized for zoning out.

"Ros," she murmured.

 _Don't worry about it! If I had a headlight as pretty as yours, I'd get distracted by it too!_ Arnold's medicham had one of the sweetest mental voices I'd ever heard. Like she'd thank you for a punch in the face or a kick in the leg.

"Ampharos and other electric types sometimes get spacey when their electricity gets stale. Has this been happening a lot lately?" Arnold's speaking voice was almost identical to his medicham's mental voice.

"It mostly started after she evolved. I mean, she's always been a little spacey, but after she became an ampharos she'd start zoning out even during things she liked. She made me rebuy tickets to watch _How to Train Your Noivern_ in theaters because she'd forgotten the entire thing. She'd been waiting for that movie for months, and she was on the edge of her seat the entire time."

At this, Arnold furrowed his brow. "You don't use her to power your house?"

"My mom's luxray powers the entire house on her own. She gets very...territorial about it."

"When was the last time Snow discharged all of her electricity?"

"Pha pharos, amparos am am," Snow was finally paying enough attention to participate.

 _She says it was when you fought a nidorino during gym. How long ago was that?_

"Two months maybe?" I couldn't remember for sure.

"So, she only ever discharges all of her electricity during a tough battle?"

"Am," Snow nodded.

Arnold and the medicham exchanged glances. "Snowflake should be draining all of her electricity at least once a month. Otherwise it will start to go stale and she'll get forgetful."

He looked at Snow. She was back to rocking on her beanbag chair. "Or, she'll get _more_ forgetful anyway. If your house is already powered by your mother's luxray, then you can either drain it all in a battle, or set up a regular appointment with an organization that needs her electricity. I recommend the latter, because she'll get paid for it. And it just so happens that I work with a massive company that always needs more power."

He bent down, and emerged a moment later with a sizable file in his hand. Then he opened it up and showed it to me. "This is Anderson and White, they make hard drives. They contract all sorts of pokemon from us. It used to be mostly water types because the computer-making process uses fresh water for cooling purposes, but after the cooling process is complete, the water becomes contaminated. They used to just dump it, but people have been complaining about the effect it's had on the ecosystem, so they've been ordered to clean up the harbor they've damaged and establish a program for purifying the water immediately after it's used. Their plan to do this involves lots of electricity, so they're hiring all the strong electric types they can. If your Snowflake has so much pent-up juice that it's making her spacey, she's definitely powerful enough for this job. What do you think?"

I agreed immediately, but Snow needed to be reminded as to what we were agreeing about. Once we'd had relayed it all to her again, she agreed. Arnold's medicham told me Snow said she wanted to feel more alert again.

Then it was Peanut's turn. Arnold initially tried to get Peanut interested in a cleaning job that wanted crobat to blow accumulated grimer slime off of various pieces of machinery, then fly it to the nearest waste disposal station, but upon hearing that Peanut was actually more interested in swimming than flying, offered him a job with the same company as Snow. They needed pokemon that were able to go underwater, were immune to poison, and were more mobile than tentacruel or skrelp to swim around in still contaminated waters and clear out the local pokemon before the area was cordoned off and the electric pokemon were sent in to zap it. Peanut requested a new pair of goggles. Arnold called the company, who said those could be provided, and gave Peanut the job.

Before either of them could get started, however, they both had to go through certification. Snow had to learn basic safety precautions, how to shock herself unconscious if she was ever unable to stop generating electricity in an emergency, and how to give an even flow of electricity so she wouldn't cause a power surge. Peanut's certification was a bit trickier, because he was a poison/flying type who was going to do a water type's job, but after some planning and a few phone calls to make sure everything we were doing would result in the right certification, we devised a plan to get Peanut certified as a swimmer/diver. In addition to the usual tests of speed and agility in water, Peanut had to go through breathholding tests to see how long he could go down at a time, show he could cope with pressure changes in deep water, learn how to attack underwater and, of course, prove that he could survive in tainted water. All in all, Snow needed a few days while Peanut took a week to get certified. Once everything was complete, they were ready to start working.

I had known from the instant Arnold said the word "harbor" that the job my pokemon were being asked to do was several hours away by plane. My family and I live in the desert, where water types are prized and the streets are wider than the rivers. So when I asked Arnold how long my pokemon would be away and when I could see them again, I was surprised to learn that the pokeball transfer system had made it possible for a pokemon in California to work for an afternoon in Maine and be back in time for dinner. They were even working on expanding this system internationally, so pokemon could work in Mumbai in the morning, Leipzig in the afternoon, and pop by Antarctica before heading home to Mexico City in the evening.

For the next few weeks, things settled into a routine. We all woke up, ate breakfast, then the humans went to school and work while the pokemon were transferred via computer to various corners of the country for their jobs. In the evenings, the humans would return and wait by the computer for the pokemon to be sent back. Once everybody had all of their pokeballs, the pokemon were released and everyone ate dinner before heading back to their various responsibilities. Snow was doing much better, her zoning out was back down to what I considered to be healthy levels. She even seemed more energetic, insisting that we play zap catch (which is where I throw a frisbee and Snow zaps it until it's magnetized, then puts the opposite charge into her front hooves so she can make the frisbee change course and catch it) together before I did my homework each night. Peanut, too, seemed happier. He now had custom made deep-water goggles courtesy of his job (the company provided them for free since Arnold had made the argument that they were a necessary work expense), and he would sometimes drag me to the pocket room, then imagine it full of water and show off how fast he could swim or how accurately he could swing an Air Slash from a hundred meters under.

That all changed when Peanut came home one day and was unusually listless. He was uninterested in doing the things that usually made him happy: promises of watching documentaries about the deep sea, getting his back scratched, and being allowed to show off in the pocket room all failed to get any sort of reaction beyond a murmured "crobat," and a shaking head. I asked Snow if she knew what was bothering him, but she just shrugged her shoulders and said "ampharos am," in a tone that meant she was as confused as I was. When dinner time came and Peanut didn't want to eat, though, I started to get really worried.

Ever since the flying type specialist had told him to go on a diet, Peanut was always hungry. I'd tried to do everything I could to make it easier on him: we fed him rindo berries in the hope that they would make him feel fuller without giving him as many calories, I gave him ango berries for snacks in the hope they would suppress his appetite, I even snuck him my leftovers a few times (which thankfully didn't make him sick because unlike Snow, Peanut has an immune system), but none of it was ever enough. I knew he tried to hide it, I could see the muscles tense under his fur when he ate as he tried to keep himself from swallowing it whole, and twice I had caught him in the pocket room at late hours, gorging on holographic sweets just to feel like he could be full. If something was keeping him from wanting to eat, then it had to be very, very serious.

I tried asking what was wrong. He replied with yet another disinterested "crobat." I tried tickling him. Still didn't work. I tried asking Snow to ask, he answered her with a series of "cros" and "bats", but when I tried to ask her what he said, she tried and failed several times before tapping her hoof to her face in her gesture of "I give up."

This problem was clearly too complicated to communicate with tones and gestures. I needed a translator.


	5. Cyrena

_No,_ Dad's gothitelle thought at me, _I spent all day doing that, and I want a break._

"Oh come on Eric, please? It's for Peanut, you love Peanut!"

 _Everyone loves Peanut_ , Eric quipped _, that doesn't mean I'm any less exhausted._

"I'll bring you cookies!" I offered in a singsong voice, "Those black and white ones I know you like!"

 _No amount of sweets will sway me, goddaughter. I want nothing more than to be left alone with my thoughts right now._

That last part gave me an idea. A horribly devious, grievous idea.

"If you won't help me understand why Peanut is so sad, I'll start singing that song from the steakhouse commercial. I'll get it stuck in everybody's head, and then, even if you go as far away as possible, you'll never be able to get it out of yours."

At this, the gothitelle's emotionless face showed a sliver of fear, then anger, then resignation, and then it was back to the usual emotionless wall. _Fine, I'll help you figure out what's making Peanut so sad. But if I hear so much as a note from that accursed jingle, I'll give you nightmares for a week._

"Deal," I said, and we walked down to where I'd last seen Peanut moping.

 _He's preoccupied,_ __Eric told me, and turned around to leave.

I held out my arm to stop him. "Everyone with eyes knows that. Tell me what he's thinking."

 _That breaches so many levels of ethics as well as several laws._

"Fine Mr. Smartydress, just ask him what he wants to tell me. Is that ethical and legal enough for you?"

He grumbled, before locking eyes with Peanut for a few minutes.

 _He says he made a friend._ __

I groaned. "He's been all mopey because he made a friend? How does that even work!?"

 _He says the friend is a wild pokemon who wants a trainer. She's asked the humans working nearby, but they're all adults with full teams. All the kids she's asked don't want her, and when the harbor-cleaning project finishes, she's going to be forced away from the places where humans live by all the pokemon repopulating the area, so she's worried she's running out of chances._

Well, that at least made some sense. More than moping over making a new friend, anyway. I started talking directly to Peanut: "I don't want to promise anything, because I still haven't been able to choose any of my own pokemon, but what if I talk to her? If I like her, I'll catch her, and if I don't, I'll try and help her find someone who does, ok?"

Peanut brightened a bit at this. "Cro!" he nodded emphatically.

I'd always wanted a water pokemon, but they were so rare where I lived, and most of the ones that wanted to be caught were snapped up as soon as they made that decision. But the fact that no one seemed to want her was holding me back. Was it just because these were coastal people who could catch water types easily? Or was there something else wrong with this friend of Peanut's? I decided to probe a bit, while I still had my dad's gothitelle to translate.

"What's she like?" I asked. This prompted a series of happy chirps and whistles from Peanut, which Eric later translated.

 _He says she's kind. And considerate. And she loves sunlight. And she's always wanted to know more about humans. And she's tough, she can survive in waters where even dragalge won't swim. And,_ he paused briefly _, she's beautiful. Now if you don't mind, I've held up my end of our bargain, so I'm going back to the attic before Peanut starts composing poetry for his watery love. Chao~_

And with that, he flowed back up the stairs and out of sight.

We started to plan out how I was going to meet Peanut's...er... _friend_. Snow and Peanut would keep working after the month deadline passed, both to keep tabs on the friend, and to save the extra for our trip. Meanwhile, Peanut and I would get our flyer's licenses, and we would all fly to South Padre, Texas, where the cleaning was taking place. Once we got there, I'd rent a room at a hotel and a psychic translator, and Snow and Peanut would go sightseeing after Peanut introduced me to his crush. The two of us would talk alone, and, if we both felt we were a good match, I would catch her and we would all spend a few days at the beach before flying home. If I didn't like this mysterious pokemon, we'd contact the local placement agency and see if there were any matches nearby, and I'd go to the non-contaminated part of the beach and find somemon who was willing to be my souvenir.

Getting the flyer's license wasn't actually too hard since, for once, Peanut's size was an asset. He was big enough to carry me easily, but no so big that I couldn't get a grip. Instead of a saddle, we settled for the cheaper (and more waterproof) option of putting handles on Peanut's goggle strap and a nylon belt with footholds around his waist. We used this method for the test, passed, and each got our licenses. Now all we had to do was save money and bide our time until Spring Break.

Once the last bell rang for class, I bolted out the door faster than any of my other classmates. My mom was waiting in her car outside. I threw my bags in the back, grabbed Peanut's belt from its perch on the dry-cleaning hook, gave her a hug, and said goodbye for the week. My parents knew about the plan, and agreed on three conditions. First, I had to keep studying and couldn't spend all of my time planning in the time leading up to Spring Break. Second, I had to check in with them every three hours (unless it was some ungodly hour of the night in which case they wanted to know the names of the hotels I stayed at). Finally, everybody had to be microchipped. My parents wanted to be sure that, if there was a problem, they knew which police force to contact and where to send them. Since these terms were pretty lenient, especially considering that I was eleven at the time, we'd all agreed to them, and in return, my parents gave me some extra money and supplies, asked me to take pictures, and let me take off straight from the end of school.

I recalled Snow, saddled Peanut, and, with a wingbeat and a gust of wind, we were off.

As we rocketed through the sky, I made a mental note to always wear a parachute and goggles when riding Peanut. I mean, everybody knew he was fast, that was why we needed the upgraded pocket room in the first place, but geez, Peanut was shooting through the sky like a bullet! By the time we stopped for dinner, we'd already reached the Texan border, and just after the sun had gone down, we made it to South Padre.

We found the hotel I'd made a reservation at, a lovely place with an endless pool and a great view of the island, and checked into our room. As a special treat to celebrate our vacation, we ordered dessert from room service. Snow had a piece of pineapple upside down cake, I had the lemon bar, and I let Peanut have two hot fudge sundaes, extra nuts. Any pokemon that can cut out a trip to the airport and still beat the plane has earned some slack from his diet. Once we'd finished our treats and gotten ready for bed, I pulled down the covers on the bed and we piled in together. All of us fell asleep immediately.

I awoke the next morning to the familiar feeling of being suffocated by purple. Peanut had found that sitting on my head was a reliable way to wake me up. Meanwhile, I had found that pulling his ear was a reliable way to get him off my face, so I reached up until I found one of his purple tufts, and tugged it until Peanut let out a whine and rolled off of me.

All while Snow and I were getting ready, Peanut looked like he was going to start ricocheting

off the walls. As soon as we were presentable and sufficiently covered in sunblock, Peanut was pushing us out the door and down the street. As I was being reverse-led to our destination, I pulled out my phone and dialed the number for the local psychic translator hotline. The receptionist answered with a cheery drawl and asked what we needed. I explained our predicament, and she told us to wait at the nearest intersection. We did, and a few moments later a kadabra appeared and explained that his name was Stu and that it would be our translator for the day. He had barely finished his sentence when Peanut added him to the push-pile headed towards the docks.

The purification section was really just some pokemon and insulating curtains that made it so that only evacuated portions of the harbor would be electrified. There some water types swimming around making sure wild pokemon didn't enter the dangerous sections of the bay, some psychic and steel types standing on the docks who seemed to be responsible for summoning the constant influx of dark and dirty water into the harbor, and, of course, there were dozens of electric types who were each channeling streams of electricity into the cordoned off sections of water. Peanut shuffled over to a dirty, rancid smelling corner of the harbor, and when he'd reached the edge, dunked his head under. A few seconds later, a small, brown, and unbelievably shabby fish poked its head out of the water.

Once Peanut had confirmed that yes, this little brown thing was indeed his friend, Snow pretended to be really interested in a particularly colorful hangglider off in the distance, and dragged Peanut over to go and look with her. I gave them both some pocket money to buy a souvenir. Stu and I remained to talk to the little fish.

With Stu translating, I found out that the little fish was called a feebas.

"Like the fairy tale? The ugly Magikarp?" I asked.

The feebas said she didn't know, but Stu personally clarified that yes, she was the same species.

The pages from my storybook started to flood back to me. An ugly, drab little fish that none of the magikarp liked because it looked dirty and sick, who traveled around being rejected and/or terrified by everyone he met. He ended up living in solitude, until one day he saw a group of milotic, and decided that it would be better to possibly be killed by a thing of beauty than to continue his miserable existence. He begged to join them, and was surprised when they accepted. He asked why, and they said that he was one of them. The instant he was accepted for who he was, he evolved into a milotic himself, and no one ever called him ugly again.

Back when I was still in my princess phase, I'd stared at that picture of the milotic for hours on end. The illustration painted them as having scales that could shine like a rainbow and eyes that reflected the beauty of all they saw. And if what I'd heard from the announcers on the competitive battles was correct, milotic were a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield. Whenever it looked like the chips were down and the next hit would win, the milotic's scales would start glowing of their own accord, and it was like they were suddenly made of diamond: the same moves that had brought them to the edge of fainting suddenly seemed useless. Such a pokemon was invaluable, even if it meant I had to put up with its...unusual appearance for a bit. It would all be worth it in the end.

Stu read my mind before I could say anything, and told the feebas I wanted to train her. She jumped out of the water, in what I think was a display of happiness. I pulled out the pokeball I'd brought just in case, and caught her. Then I paid Stu, who thanked me before teleporting away, and went off to find Snow and Peanut.

I finally tracked them to a Mexican buffet, where they were stuffing their faces with tomales and enchiladas. I should have scolded Miss I-don't-have-an-immune-system and Mr. I-grow-three-inches-from-eating-a-piece-of-pie for spending their money on food, but then I realized I hadn't told them _not_ to buy lunch, and it _was_ lunchtime, so I decided to let it slide. After all, Snow only got sick when she ate food that other people or pokemon had already bitten, and Peanut had just gotten me a soon-to-be milotic, so I figured they could indulge a little more on this vacation. I went up to the front and bought two more plates, one for myself and one for the feebas. A waiter came by with a fishbowl seat, and I filled our plates: mine with mostly tacos and guacamole, and the feebas' with a little bit of everything.

I put bits of food into the feebas' fishbowl a little at a time, and we devised a system to get an idea of what she liked: she'd rise up a little if it was good, and sink a little if she didn't like it. Through this system, I learned that this particular feebas ate just about every sort of vegetable, starch, and legume we could find, but seemed to dislike meat in all its forms. Once she stopped eating the food I dropped into her bowl, indicating that she was done, I tried to brainstorm names for my new catch. I wrote a list of possibilities and read them to my three pokemon. Snow was most in favor of the name "Ariel", while Peanut seemed to prefer "Bianca". Feebas didn't seem to react to either. I tried "Michelle", "Adelaide", "Cora", "Yvonne", and "Katrina" to no avail. My feebas seemed equally indifferent to everything I suggested. After failing to find a match with mythological figures, Disney characters, and celebrity names, I finally suggested the name "Cyrena", which the feebas seemed to like. Not gonna lie, I was a little weirded out by that. "Cyrena" was my great-grandmother's name, and it had almost been mine. Giving it to a pokemon felt like I was giving up some part of myself in the process. Then I remembered that the feebas in my story had evolved when he was accepted by others, and decided to let Cyrena have the name she wanted. It would probably stop feeling weird after a while.

We spent the rest of the vacation enjoying the beach. Peanut only got out of the water when it was time to eat or go to bed. Whenever he left, I could see dozens of heads pop out of the water to see him off. Snow coped with her inability to go into the ocean by building sandcastles. She started out with simple bucket piles, but by the end of the week she was making...well, sand castles. She'd even hollow them out and let wild krabby hide in them. Meanwhile, Cyrena and I spent the week wading in the shallows. I'd watch her swim circles around my legs, and marvel at how well her sandy colored scales would blend into the ocean floor. Occasionally she'd dart off into deeper waters, and return with a sand dollar or a piece of seaweed in her mouth for me to see. Whenever other water pokemon swam nearby though, she'd swim behind me and hide until they left.

There was a nice tailwind on our last day, so we made it home after only a couple of hours of flying. My parents were ecstatic to hear that I'd caught a water pokemon, promptly made appointments with the vet to make sure Cyrena was healthy and microchipped, and took a trip to the supply store to pick out a decent fishbowl for her so she could sleep in my bedroom if she chose.


	6. Trading

Training Cy was an exercise in patient compassion. Unlike Peanut, who only spent a couple of weeks as a golbat, Cy didn't evolve into a milotic until I was twenty and had a full team with everyone else in their final stage. People's responses varied: some were concerned about Cy's health and self esteem, while others accused me of being a cruel or incompetent trainer. The worst were those who thought she was defective because she wasn't evolving. These people rarely had the decency to wait until she was out of earshot, and every time she overheard them she would spend the night trying to bury herself in rainbow fishbowl rocks. Peanut would curl himself around her bowl and make purring clicks in an attempt to soothe her, but even if he managed to cheer up, she always seemed a bit worse for wear.

I tried to rationalize my hope that she would evolve soon as concern for my pokemon's mental state, but somewhere underneath that, I am ashamed to admit I wanted her to be different. I didn't want her personality to change; I'd grown to love my little fish almost as much as Peanut had, but carrying the fishbowl was frustrating and her skin was rough and scratchy and she couldn't stay out of water for very long. And, well, she was ugly. I tried so hard not to think of it that way, but it was true. And every time I felt like I was getting better, some numbskull would remind me of it by making a stupid comment, and I knew she could see it in my face and that knowing I secretly agreed really hurt her.

Maybe I was a bad trainer. Maybe Cy would have become a milotic on her own if I hadn't caught her. Maybe I should ask if she wanted to be traded to someone who actually knew how to deal with a feebas without making her self esteem issues worse.

That last one made my chest ache, but I figured I should do it. I owed it to Cyrena to at least make sure that if I couldn't make her happy, that another trainer could.

I got Eric to translate Cy's response, he told me that she loved me and my team, but she was tired of being picked on and worried that her evolution, which was the whole reason she'd wanted a trainer in the first place, would never come. We agreed to look into other options.

After a few internet searches, I came across a forum for mutually beneficial trades. Trainers who didn't have the money or space to be able to keep their pokemon, trainers who wanted to divorce their pokemon without fully releasing them, and the relatives of deceased trainers whose families couldn't train their teams all went there to find a solution to each other's problems. I found the profile of a man who had a milotic of his own, and messaged him asking if he wanted another one.

Thus began my correspondence with "MazeforDaze", as he called himself. He was a professional trainer with a neurotic lucario who found his current living situation to be overly stressful, so he was looking for a casual trainer who would treat her like a pet. Everyone felt the trade was fair: both pokemon would get what they needed, and both trainers would receive pokemon of roughly equal value. We began to Skype to arrange specifics.

Two days before one of these Skype dates, both Maze and I had unexpected schedule conflicts. Not wanting to waste all that planning, we decided that we would both leave our pokemon at home and they could talk to each other without any pressure from us.

When I got home several hours after the Skype conversation was scheduled to end, Cy was still floating in front of my computer, talking to the lucario. Snow, who was reading a book on the couch nearby, had attached a charger to her tail to keep the computer from dying, and Peanut had been sleeping on the floor. As I came in, he woke up and looked at me, bleary eyed. I tried to gingerly make my way through them, but in my nervousness to not interrupt I tripped over the charger and almost knocked Cy headfirst into Snow's high voltage tail. Luckily, Peanut's inability to sleep through opening doors had woken him up enough to save Cy's bowl from inverting and electrocuting both my pokemon and my laptop.

Once everything was back in order and the Lucario had signed off, I apologized to Cy for the accident. She was really agitated, splashing around and swimming in circles. I thought it was because she thought my apology was insincere, so I tried again, but she didn't calm down. She kept swimming frantically until I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned to see Snow holding the hand of my mom's scatterbrained reuniclus, Jelly.


	7. Translators

_Look said bow tray nerd, water stain wick heed, sigh hang reed need vest eat volt! Need vest eat volt!_

I repeatedly pinched the bridge of my nose, then turned to look at Cy. She'd stopped moving as much, and she was floating low in her bowl.

"Could you try again, Jelly? I'm not sure we understood that."

Jelly's face changed for a second, like they were having a brief moment of clarity, before hopping back on the train to Nonsenseland. _Look know water tray, water cane sell. Sigh said, hang reed. Need vest eat volt!_

Snow's forehead lightbulb was glowing: she was thinking as hard as she could to figure out what in the unown Jelly had just said. Peanut had curled into a ball and was rolling back and forth like a supersized scolipede trying to do the same thing. Cy was lying flat against her bowl, staring up at the ceiling like a stunfisk. She'd only done that once before, when a particularly tactless relative had called her "retarded". I could only imagine what it meant now.

Unlike Eric, Jelly had consistently failed their interpreter training. They were supposedly brilliant and they had an incredible capacity for blocking hits, but there was something bizarre about their mental voice, like they were talking backwards through a pile of coats.

Dad had taken his team, my sister's team with the exception of her mienshao, and my other three pokemon to the mountains for a training weekend, so Jelly was the only psychic available for the next two days. Or rather, he was the only psychic available unless I wanted to shell out the $150 fee to hire a psychic for an hour, which I didn't.

After five more minutes of trying to translate Jelly's word vomit, I pulled out my wallet and dialed the psychic hotline.

Stu, now an alakazam with massive copper spoons, promptly appeared in my living room. He looked just as surprised to see us as we were to see him.

 _Have I gone back in time? You all look the same! Well, not exactly the same, you,_ he pointed a spoon at Snow, _look more beautiful_ _and you,_ he pointed the other spoon at Peanut _, are even bigger than you were when I saw you last! What have you been eating, miracle seeds?_

"He grows an inch every time I let him have a cookie," I replied. "If he ate a miracle seed, he'd be too big for our house."

 _Ah! Well then, best to stay away from those, they give you a horrible growth spurt and leave a nasty taste in your mouth! Now, why is it you called me here after all these years?_

"Remember my feebas? She hasn't evolved yet, and I'm not sure I can help her. We'd been arranging a trade so she could be with a trainer who has already evolved a feebas before, but now she seems mad at me and I can't figure out why. Our previous attempts at psychic translation…" I glanced at Jelly, who thankfully seemed to be off in their own little world, "weren't quite successful."

 _Well, no surprise there! Reuniclus are *infamous* for their hilarious translations! That's what happens when you have a membrane instead of a skull: garbled in, garbage out. But anyway, you said you thought your feebas is was upset about something?_

Stu locked eyes with Cy, and stared at her for a few minutes. He then stood up and faced me.

 _Your Cyrena isn't angry, she's happy! She'd been talking with the lucario, who wants to cancel the trade. She just learned a new dragon type move, and that Maze Guy's been super happy because he's been trying to catch a dragon type for years but was never able to. The whole reason he wanted Cyrena was to teach her ice beam and use her and his milotic as dual dragon catchers, but now that his lucario can fill that role, they don't need to trade anymore._

It baffled me that Cyrena was so happy to hear the trade had been canceled. I'd thought that she felt trading was her best chance at evolving. Stu read my mind and answered before I'd even formulated a question.

 _That's the cool part! Since the Maze guy no longer wants to trade for your Cyrena, the lucario thought it would be ok to reveal the secret of how Maze guy evolved his milotic. Apparently he took his feebas to a special spring with extra shiny water, and spent a few days pampering and bonding with him. Then, they swam in the pool together and BAM! Instant milotic! Now you know what you need to do, you don't have to trade your Cyrena away!_

At this, Peanut bolted off the floor and gave me a massive hug and one of his widest smiles. Snow, meanwhile, had resorted to picking up Cy's fishbowl and hugging that, since the two weren't supposed to touch. Cy swam toward her in an indirect hug. Eventually, Peanut got bored of hugging me and waddled over to embrace his teammates in yet another bone crushing hug.

 _While your teammates are busy, can I talk to you outside? It's important._


	8. Spoons

As soon as we were out of sight of the others, Stu's chipper smile fell off his face, and he heaved a sigh.

 _I don't think a little pampering will be enough to get your Cyrena to evolve._

Upon seeing my confused expression, he elaborated.

 _In order to do my job, I need to...delve into the minds of my clients. I am very careful to only learn what is necessary, and I can wipe my memory upon request, but while I'm acting as an interpreter, I need to know the circumstances and background of the problems if I want to have any hope of conveying information accurately. Anyway, while I was working with Cyrena, I got a taste of what it feels like to be her. It's not pretty. She has the lowest self esteem of any pokemon I've ever met, and she's constantly miserable. I know this will probably come as a shock to you, but Cyrena is suffering from one of the worst cases of depression I've ever seen._

I couldn't tell whether I'd gone numb, or whether the world was just feeling fuzzy. "But, you just said she was happy! How can she be depressed at the same time?"

 _Depression isn't a mood, it's a status. You can feel the full range of emotions, but they'll always be tinted with a negative feeling. For some, it's sadness. For others, it's numbness. For Cyrena, it's hopelessness. She doesn't believe she can evolve, and that lack of confidence is dragging her entire life down. What's worse, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy: depressed pokemon are unable to evolve until their depression lifts._

Cyrena is depressed. Cyrena. Is. Depressed. It made too much sense. The times she buried herself in fishbowl rocks after somebody insulted her, the fact that she constantly overslept by feebas standards, the difficulty I had convincing her to eat enough; those weren't quirks, they were _symptoms_. And I had ignored all of them and assumed that was just the way Cy worked. I wanted to ram my head against the wall until I couldn't think anymore. Instead, Stu smacked me upside the head with his spoon.

 _I heard that! No self harm allowed!_

I winced and rubbed my head. There would be a spoon-shaped knot there for at least a few days.

 _It's different when *I* hurt you. It's my job for the remainder of the hour to solve your problems, and I know that one smack of my spoon will be enough to keep you from smacking yourself for at least a week. Besides, I know just how to hit you humans so as to maximize pain and avoid permanent damage: all you would have accomplished by headbutting the wall was kill brain cells without getting the distraction from the pain. Now, do you want my help for the few minutes we have left, or not?_

I nodded, hands covering my spoonmark.

 _Good, because I'm going to tell you everything you need to do to get your pokemon out of her funk and into a brand new state of being._


	9. Terrifying Kiddie Pools

_She needs to exercise. Outside. In the sunlight. If you can't go to a lake, buy a kiddie pool._

The only pool at the store was shaped like a cartoonish lombre head. Peanut is afraid of it. It's the only time I've seen him hesitate about anything water related.

 _I don't care if she wants to, she needs to eat more. Make sure the health-to-junk ratio is at least 5-1._

Even when I'd exercised her to the point where she had to be starving, Cy didn't want food, and she _really_ didn't want healthy food. After exhausting every other plan I could think of, I caved and used the airplane trick. It worked, and now she makes engine noises whenever she eats.

 _Regular sleep is also important. That means everybody goes to bed and wakes up at the same time, or it'll ruin her schedule._

My pokemon team consists of one pokemon whose face is literally a literally a light bulb, a pokemon who wears goggles every waking hour of the day because he can't stand bright lights, and a depressed pokemon who either oversleeps or wakes up at the sound of a pin drop. It was a rough few weeks trying to get everybody sleeping at the same time, but at least I learned a new trick to make _myself_ go to sleep: plan a sleep schedule that everybody agrees on.

 _Don't tell Cyrena she's depressed, or she'll panic and get worse. Pokemon are very bad at dealing with mental diseases, especially their own. Just treat her like a sad friend who needs a lot of cheering up, and be as supportive as you can be._

After I came home from class every day, I'd bring a few pecha berries and feed them to Cy. Then I'd carry her fishbowl a mile to the nearest indoor pool, and we'd swim together for about an hour. When it was time to go home, I made sure to hug and pet her as much as I could before putting her back in her bowl. I figured she was dealing with demons she didn't even know she had, the least I could do to help was hug her a bit more.

 _Finally, when you think she's better, you need to do what that Maze guy did with his feebas. Go on a vacation, just you and her, and treat her like a queen: do everything you can to make her feel happy, valued, and most of all, beautiful. If you do it right, she should evolve._

After a month and a half of depression grinding, Cy seemed happier and healthier than before. It was time to take the next step. Luckily, I had an old friend who owed me a serious favor and just so happened to own a cabin they weren't using.


	10. Mountain Mansions

My Pacifish

Natalya was only too happy to let us use her cabin for a week, on the condition that she send some of her staff along to assist us. I objected, but she insisted that it was the least she could do for Cyrena and we wouldn't even know they were there.

That was a lie. When I finally got to Natalya's "cabin" ("mountain-themed mansion" would have been a more appropriate description) there were five pokemon standing in a row at the entrance. All of them bowed in unison and welcomed me to Natalya's little spot in the mountains, speaking perfect Human English through their translator collars.

These pokemon: a parasect, a slurpuff, an altaria, a smeargle, and a mismagius, were members of Natalya's primary "helper team". I'd often see them around whenever I visited her main house, and she never hesitated to point out just how good each of them were at their jobs. When she felt amazing, it was because the parasect had given her an exquisite massage and aromatherapy session. If we had lunch together and I marveled at the food (which I always did), it was because the slurpuff was such an exceptional connoisseur that everything he made was simply scrumptous. The altaria was the reason why her house always sparkled with cleanliness and her makeup was so entrancing, and the smeargle was why her children's pokemon were learning aura sphere fresh out of the egg. Finally, the mismagius was the ultimate butler: he'd levitate guests' bags (as well as the guests themselves) to their rooms using the quickest route possible-through the walls. And though I couldn't prove it and I would never inquire, I also suspected he was responsible for making sure that guests behaved themselves properly and didn't show their hostess any disrespect. I'd once overheard a guest complaining about some unusually realistic and terrifying nightmares he'd had while staying in Chateau Natalya. The night before he'd commented that Natalya's taste in decor was "garish", so I doubt the nightmare was a coincidence.

I later learned that there was a sixth pokemon who would be accompanying us for the duration of our stay: Natalya had persuaded her husband to send his famous red genesect as a security guard for the week. Apparently he hoped a quiet week in the mountains would calm his genesect down. His pokemon, however, felt that she was already calm enough, so she had gone into the woods to take out her frustration on any intruders she could find. We probably wouldn't see her at all during our visit, and according to the mismagius, that was probably for the best.

It was well past dark by the time we'd arrived, so I declined the helper pokemon's offers for various evening-related activities in favor of going straight to bed. The parasect graciously offered to help us get to sleep by using her spore technique, and I accepted. After I'd climbed into bed and positioned Cy's bowl atop the nightstand, the parasect raised her claws and a fine mist filled the room. I fell asleep almost instantly, but just before I closed my eyes I thought I saw Cy press herself back against her bowl.


	11. Red Claws

The next day, the altaria woke us up with some truly beautiful singing, and suggested we begin our day with the parasect. I agreed, and, carrying Cy's bowl in my arms, followed her into the relaxation room.

Inside were two chairs: one human shaped and the other vague and bulky so as to accommodate most pokemon. Ocean sounds were playing from a sound system in the corner, and the walls were painted a tranquil shade of teal. I put Cy's bowl on top of the vaguely-shaped chair and sat down on the human chair to wait for the parasect, who came in shortly afterward.

"Good morning dears. Who's first?" The parasect had a quiet, soothing voice. Just hearing her made me want to curl up and go back to sleep.

Cy, meanwhile, seemed transfixed and was barely moving. She was probably off in the world of her own thoughts, so I volunteered to get the first massage.

It was heavenly. The parasect knew just how to use her claws to be firm but gentle, and her careful kneading was undoing knots I never knew I had. No wonder Natalya loved her so much! By the time she'd finished, I was in a blissful stupor.

The parasect scuttled over to begin working on Cy, who was pressed firmly against the side of the bowl farthest from the masseur. "You don't need to be afraid, sweetie, I'm specially trained to cause no unnecessary pain, and I can be extra gentle if you're nervous." She stepped on a hydraulic pump, and the vague chair lowered enough for the parasect to be able to massage Cy in her bowl. "Just relax, you'll be feeling better in no time!"

She lifted her claws to begin, and Cy jolted back, knocking her bowl off the chair. It broke, and water spilled everywhere.

Apparently, Cy is afraid of parasect. She wouldn't let the pokemon come anywhere near her, despite the fact that her bowl was broken and she was flopping about desperately trying to cover her gills in the puddle on the floor. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to keep her steady in her panic, so the parasect had to use stun spore so I could pick her up and bring her to the pool in the backyard. This scared her even more.

I dropped Cy into the pool, and she sank like a rock. The parasect disappeared inside, and came out carrying a paralyz heal and a larger, older looking version of the translator collar she was wearing.

"This collar used to belong to a feebas, so it's pre-programmed to work on Cyrena. Natalya insisted we bring it along, in case there was a problem. She knows how...difficult...it can be to communicate with fish pokemon."

Cy had adhered herself to the far side of the pool, so the parasect handed me the collar to put on her. It was a little big, and Cy was suspicious of it because it came from the parasect, but I got it on her eventually.

"How's it feel?"

Cy kept her eyes on the parasect as she replied. "It feels fine." She sounded suspicious.

"I'm really sorry. I thought a massage would make you feel better. I didn't realize you were so afraid of parasect."

Still watching the parasect, she replied. "I'm afraid of her claws. They're big and red. Big red claws ate my sister. Big red claws almost ate me."

Remorse flooded the parasect's eyes and spilled into her tone. "I'm so sorry dear, I didn't know! It must have hurt to lose your sister, and here I am bringing back memories of your loss!" She shoved her claws under her mushroom so they weren't visible.

"Is this any better?"

"It's ok," Cy said, dully. "You didn't know. And yes, it is. Thank you."

It was understandable that the parasect, a pokemon who had only just met Cy, wasn't aware that she'd been traumatized by a pokemon with red claws. But I'd been her trainer for nine years, and this was the first I'd heard of it as well. I mean, fish pokemon were infamously difficult to read, since their faces didn't show their emotions and their raw, untranslated speech was toneless, but you'd have thought that I'd have picked up _something_. Was I the only member of my team who was unaware of this massively impactful life event? Did my pokemon know and just choose not to tell me? Did Cy try to tell me and I had ignored it? I thumped my head into my hands, none of those possibilities were good. Whether I was ignorant, my pokemon thought I was ignorant, or we were all ignorant, they all resulted in Cy suffering while I did nothing. It was the depression reveal all over again, only this time I had brought her into a situation that scared her so much she broke her bowl. Was I ever going to stop discovering ways to be a horrible trainer?

"You ok?" Cy's translator voice brought me back to reality, she had poked her head out of the water to look at me. "You seem sad."

"I'm just...sorry, Cy. I really am. I've messed up a lot as your trainer, and you're the one who's had to suffer for it. That's not right, you hurting from my mistakes."

Cy's voice was monotonous. "My sister was eaten because she wanted to get stronger. She picked a fight with a corphish, and lost. I still can't look at red claws, they remind me too much of that day, but I don't blame you for not reacting to something you didn't know had happened. I didn't want to tell you because it sounds so stupid and because it's really hard to communicate something like that and because…" the translator made a sound like a hiccup, "it shows just how _weak_ I am. My sister was in danger and I just sat there and did nothing. I didn't even flee until the corphish had finished her and tried to eat me too. I saw all of it, and I did nothing."

With that, Cyrena drifted down to the bottom of the pool and lay down flat, her eye staring up at me, but with a look like it could only see the past. I tried to call her back up, but she had gone catatonic. So, I did the most logical thing I could think of. I jumped in the pool, clothes and all, and hauled her back up to the surface.

"There was nothing you could have done, the corphish would have just eaten you too."

Cy's translator sounded mournful. "I could have done something if I was stronger. I could have helped her, I could have protected her."

"Maybe if you were a little stronger, you could have saved her. But you weren't, so you did the smart thing. You saved yourself. You can bemoan your powerlessness until you're blue in the face, Cyrena, but that won't change the past and it won't change the outcome of that fight. You can only change how you react to it now."

There was a prolonged silence as Cy sat there, swishing slightly in my arms. Finally, she spoke.

"How should I react to it?"

"I guess you should...just...try to use your failures to shape your successes. Maybe you weren't strong enough then, but that doesn't mean you'll never get stronger ever, you know? I mean, if your weight is anything to go by, you've gotten a lot stronger already! I can barely hold you up!"

"Maybe I should have just laid on top of the corphish and squished it into submission."

I couldn't help but snicker at that. "It wouldn't have stood a chance!"

I could almost hear a smile in the translator's tone as she spoke. "That's because it wouldn't have stood at all."

I laughed a little too hard at that, and almost got Cyrena to laugh with me. Then the parasect came over and explained that she had found a way to use techniques without showing us her claws. She asked Cy if she would feel comfortable receiving an aromatherapy treatment if no claws were visible. Cy said she'd be fine with that, and thanked her for her consideration. The parasect then shook her mushroom, and a pinkish mist filled the area. There was a small garden next to the pool, and as soon as the mist passed over the flower buds, they burst into bloom and sent petals flying everywhere. We watched the airborne sea of scent and petals wash over the sky until my fingers were pruned, my arms were tired, and the slurpuff called us inside for brunch.


	12. Tofu

"I love meat, but Cy hates it. It works best when we eat different things."

I was wrapped in several towels, nursing a fantastic cup of payapa juice. Cy was floating in a repurposed flower vase while the mismagius went to town for a new fishbowl. The slurpuff, meanwhile, was rapidly flipping through a cookbook that was bigger than he was.

"Non non non, this is unacceptable! You must eat together! Share the same food, and you share the same feelings! I will make a vegetarian dish, there are several delightful ways to make tofu that I know you will just adore!"

I cringed. Tofu was disgusting. "Isn't there anything else you can make? Even plain vegetables would be better than that gunk!"

The slurpuff shook his head. "A main course must have a center! It can be meat or it can be tofu, but it must be something! You cannot survive off of sides, not in my kitchen!

"It's ok. I'll eat meat." Cyrena's voice was monotonous again.

I was about the heave a sigh of relief, but gulped it down when I realized the slurpuff was glaring at me.

"We are here to help the feebas feel better. It is not _her_ job to compromise with her trainer."

Cursed unown, he had a point. We _were_ here to make Cy feel better, and here I was whining about having to eat tofu. All that was going to do was make her feel bad for impositioning me. I had to let her have this, and I had to make her feel like I at least kindof wanted it. Even if that meant inventing a reason why.

"No, we should have tofu. I've...been meaning to get into it anyway."

Satisfied, the slurpuff hopped away with a fluffy thud, proclaiming happily that he knew just the dish to make. I took another sip of my juice...

"I don't like tofu either."

...and promptly snorted it all over my towel.

"You don't?! Then why are we going to eat it?!" I asked incredulously.

Cy tilted her head down a bit and didn't look at me. "Because it's safe."

My incredulity was only growing. "Safe? Meat's plenty safe, as long as you cook it thoroughly."

"I meant safe as in it doesn't hurt anymon," Cy replied quietly.

Oh.

"Is this...about your sister?"

She bobbed her head, avoiding eye contact. "When I was wild, eating meat meant killing somemon. Lots of mon did it. Because it made them stronger, because it tasted good, because for some…" the translator's tone got darker, "it was fun. I never could. Even before my sister died, I wasn't strong enough to look my prey in the eyes and tackle them to death. Now, when I eat meat, even if it's clone meat, I still feel guilty. So tofu is safer. For me."

The words fell out of my mouth before I even realized what I was saying. "Would you like it if I stopped eating meat. Like, permanently?"

Cy didn't say anything, but she didn't need to. She sat there, floating in her vase, and she looked grateful. More grateful than I've ever seen her, ever. Bloody unown, now I _had_ to stop eating meat or I'd just be a tool of a trainer who broke her promises to her pokemon.

In what was, in hindsight, an astonishing display of responsibility, I didn't back down from my promise. Slurpuff made tofu for the both of us, and I ate it. It was squishy and way too soft, but I told myself it would probably stop tasting weird eventually and finished it anyway. To this day, I don't eat meat unless my life depends on it. And to this day, Cy thanks me by nuzzling my shoulder every time I have to eat tofu. That makes it taste better.


	13. Suitcase-Handle Hairstyles

We'd barely finished brunch when I felt my hair starting to frizz. The smeargle had scheduled a training session with Cyrena, but it could wait-I'd done enough compromising for one day, and I desperately needed a styling.

Natalya was right-the altaria was a master of her craft. She had my hair looking better than ever after only twenty minutes. The altaria asked if Cy would also like anything done, and Cy proceeded to utter a string of rapid "nos" until she sounded like she was humming.

"Are you sure darling? I have all kinds of waterproof creams and paints, I could do you up nicely if you like!"

"She's always been pretty sure about this-I've taken Cy to a few beauty parlors over the years, and she's never wanted anything they've offered. Not even a seaweed wrap."

Cy scrunched up against the lower walls of her flower vase. The altaria noticed, and tried to encourage her a bit.

"You're really a very pretty fish darling! Your scales have a very nice earth tone to them and your fins are a lovely shade of lilac and…"

"And I still manage to look hideous," Cy interrupted, her translator voice bitter and blunt.

The altaria blushed sheepishly. "I wasn't going to say that. I was trying to show you that even considering your species'...reputation...you still have your own sense of beauty about you. And I can help bring out your good side, but you have to admit to yourself that there are things about you that are beautiful, or I'll never be able to show them to others."

For the second time today, Cy knocked her bowl. This time though, I was ready, and stopped it from toppling over. Cy, meanwhile, squeezed out of the bottom of the vase where she's been hiding and stuck her head out of the water to stare the altaria in the face.

"There is nothing beautiful about me! If there was, I'd have evolved already! Everybody tells me things to try and trick me into believing that I'm not as ugly as I am, but they're all just LYING! And the worst part, is that...I don't really care...about being beautiful. I just want...to be strong enough...to keep from being a burden to everyone around me. But I can't DO that, because I can't be STRONG if I don't EVOLVE. And my... _stupid..._ species...can't evolve unless we're...BEAUTIFUL!"

To help humans understand the nuances of pokemon emotion, sometimes pokemon translators emit human noises that aren't words but still mean something. Right then, Cy's translator was making hysterical screams that were just as emotionally painful as they were loud and shrill. The altaria had wrapped her wing around my head, her cottony feathers deafening the worst of it. But that was just a temporary solution. I preferred a longer lasting approach, so I reached over and yanked Cy's translator collar over her whining, crying head.

"Shut up, Cy. I need you to listen to me."

Without the translator, Cy could only make a low moaning noise, but she stopped all the same.

"You're upset. You think you're a failure, and that we're all just lying to you so we don't have to admit it to ourselves. But you're the liar here, because you won't admit to yourself that it's impossible for anything to be completely ugly, and it's doubly impossible for you to still be weak after what I've seen you do. You saw your sister get eaten by another pokemon, and you responded by refusing to eat other pokemon so that you wouldn't inflict the same sort of torture on others, even if it meant not getting stronger, and even if it meant eating tofu. You were polite to the parasect, even though her very existence reminds you of something traumatizing. And for unown's sake, Cy, you survived every single insult, sideways glance, and patronizing comment that you've been getting for _years_. I couldn't do that, because I'm not as strong as you are! So quit whining about being beautiful, Cy, because if you only want it so that you can be strong, then you've already proven yourself wrong."

With that, I put her collar back on, and rushed to cover my ears. But Cy was just staring at me.

"I really do think you're strong Cy, and, whether you believe it or not, I think you're beautiful too."

She still didn't say anything, she just shrunk back a little until her face was scrunched up so that it looked almost human. That gave me an idea.

"Don't believe me? Then I'll prove it!"

I whispered into the altaria's ear, and she whisked me into her salon chair. She flicked eyeliner, bronzer, and concealer onto my face with the ease of a sneasel, and when she was done, she spun the chair so that Cy could see it.

"Your face looks like mine."

I beamed. "Pretty great huh?!"

Cy's face twitched a bit. "You're hair's still off though."

She was not going to win this one. I kept my face as happy as possible while I asked the altaria to do my hair like feebas fins, and watched as my lovely styling job became a suitcase handle and a distorted comb. The end result was uncanny, I really looked like someone had replaced my face with a feebas with off color fins.

I flounced over to Cy's bowl, gave her the biggest, smuggest smile I could, and started to sing. "I. Feel. Pretty. Oh so pretty. I feel pretty and witty and…"

"Ok, ok I get it! Just don't sing that song! I'll never get it out of my head!"

Cy looked me over again. "And, if I really look like that, maybe I _should_ do something. Some scale varnish at least."

"Say no more, I'm on it!" the altaria sang, and after Cy had all her scales coated with a waterproof sheen, we both left the altaria's salon feeling pretty.


	14. Wonderwall

We were an hour and a half late for the smeargle's training session, so the smeargle had taken it upon himself to arrange a few movesets while he was waiting. There were piles of tms all over the floor, the couch, and even a few resting precariously atop the tv. The smeargle, meanwhile, was hopping about the room, tweaking the piles and scribbling on a notepad with purple ink from his tail. While he addressed us, he kept his eyes on his writing. "I was wondering when you two would show up."

I picked my way through the mess of movesets, and found a free spot on the couch that was just big enough for me to sit if I scrunched and sat down, Cy's bowl in my lap.

"Glad you're comfortable," the smeargle said, eyes still on his notepad. "Let's start with a quick rundown of feebas anatomy, and the application spots of various moves."

The smeargle rattled through the ways feebas attack (with their tails, not their mouths), the nuances of this version of tms (they're played on a television and the pokemon copies the motions until they learned the move), and the potential consequences of learning too many moves at once (mental exhaustion and temporary inability to battle) faster than a lawyer reciting a disclaimer. Again, he did it all without looking up from his pad. After he finished, he ran us through the pros and cons of several four-move sets he'd arranged, and took recorded our reactions.

"I call this one "The Dragonator"," the smeargle chuckled, "Twister, Dragon Tail, Dragonbreath, and Dragon Pulse. Great for trainers who never managed to nab that special dragon type."

I blushed with embarrassment, and Cy looked uncomfortable.

"More than five seconds of silence means it's a "no"." the smeargle said, eyes still glued to his pad. "How about "The Sleepsurfer"? Rest, Sleep Talk, Snore, and Surf. It's perfect for pokemon who don't want to feel like they're battling."

"That sounds kindof...random," Cy murmered. I nodded in agreement.

"I see. Well, "The Femme Fatale" involves a lot more control," he said with a slight snicker. "Attract immobilizes, Captivate incapacitates, Confuse Ray keeps 'em wondering, and Swift has 'em seeing stars!"

Cy looked even more uncomfortable than before, so I volunteered. "I think Cy might prefer something a little less...manipulative."

The smeargle paused for a second, no doubt running through the dozens of sets he'd orchestrated. "Control, clarity, got it!" He put his pad down for the first time in the session, and bounded off toward two stacks of tms sitting on top of the book shelf. He deftly scaled the shelves, grabbed a stack in each paw, and jumped down with a thud before scurrying over to us with a silly grin and holding up his left paw.

"This set is one of my favorites! I call it "The Beam Queen"! Ice Beam, Dragon Pulse, Scald, and Hidden Power!" All of these tms are super pricey, and the moves are hard to learn, but the result is one of the most competitive sets ever. The milotic who use these moves almost never lose!"

I think I might have drooled a little bit by the end of that speech. All of those moves were powerful, and none of my other pokemon knew them. Even if Cy never evolved, she'd still be a force to be reckoned with if she knew those moves, and she could easily cover some of my team's main weaknesses.

Cy's response was almost inaudible, but it snapped me out of my reverie. "Those moves are all painful."

The smeagle misunderstood, thinking Cy was afraid of hurting herself. "Not at all dear, they're a little tiring to learn, but you won't feel anything once you know them!"

"But...they'll hurt my opponent," Cy replied meekly.

He seemed flustered. "Well, yes. That's the point of battles. Hurt your opponent until they fall unconscious, then you win."

"What if I don't want to win? What if I just want to keep myself and those I care about alive?"

The look in the smeargle's eyes was one of fascination. "Then you want this set." He held up the pile of discs in his right paw. "I call it "The Wonderwall"."

There were tms for Coil, Protect, Endure, Recover in the pile. The smeargle explained that this set needed all four moves to work properly, and was designed for pokemon who, for whatever reason, wouldn't be able to attack. Coil helped make the pokemon resistant oncoming attacks, Protect stopped the first wave, Endure kept the second wave from knocking the pokemon out, and Recover brought them back to health. Rinse and repeat until the threat is gone or has collapsed from exhaustion.

"That's perfect!" Cy's translator sounded ecstatic. "I'd like that one!"

I wasn't surprised. Even before I'd brought Cy to the cabin, I'd known she hated battling. But surprised and disappointed are different feelings, and right then, I was having a very hard time hiding the latter. The smeargle picked up on this, and tried to propose a compromise.

"When a trainer and a pokemon have different ideas of what they want, there are a few ways to compromise. The first is that we can go 50/50, with two moves for each. This gives equal quantity to both parties, but might not be very effective in battle, as two halves don't always make a whole. The second is that we can flip a coin. This allows for a fair way to choose a coherent battle set, but someone's always going to be disappointed. Finally, the last option is a bit tricky, but it might work here. The general rule for competitive battles is that pokemon register four moves and use only those four during the fight, however it's not particularly difficult for pokemon to remember additional moves. Usually these are moves that the pokemon learns naturally, but it's not unheard of for a pokemon to remember one or two tm moves aside from the four they maintain. These moves tend to be constantly rusty and need practice in order to use them regularly, but they can usually suffice in the event of an emergency. If you were willing to put in the additional effort learn an extra move," he glanced at Cy, "and if you were willing to accept that Cyrena would only learn one attacking move, and would only use it in the event of an emergency or another instance to which she consents," he glanced at me, "then we might be able to please both sides. What do you say?"

Cy nodded. "I think this is fair."

I agreed, on the condition that I got to choose which of the offensive moves Cy would learn. Both she and the smeargle had expected me to ask for Dragon Pulse, and were surprised when I chose Scald instead. But for me, it had never been much of a contest: Cy is my water type, and I hoped to be able to call on her to provide water in the event of an emergency. Besides, water moves have more coverage: dragon and ice moves would only be useful in a few situations, against the sort of rare pokemon that Cy didn't want to fight.

"Then it's settled. Let's begin with learning Scald."

The next five days were spent with Cy learning a move a day. As her trainer, my main role was organization and moral support: getting snacks and refills for the replacement fishbowl that the mismagius had finally returned with, reading background information on move maintenance, and generally trying to make sure that Cyrena didn't have any responsibilities aside from learning the moves and had plenty of encouragement and praise. In my spare time, I asked the helper pokemon about how they did their jobs, and hearing stories about their most infamous guests. By the morning of our last day, I could give a decent massage, make three different tofu dishes, style my hair within a half an hour, and I had heard several juicy piece of gossip regarding the celebrities who frequented Natalya's home. Combined with everything I'd learned about Cy, this had proven to be an especially productive trip for me. It only remained to see if we could accomplish what we came here for.


	15. Revenge of the Red Claws

_I updated the second half, as it felt slapdash. If you read it before 12/5/16, then you read the old version._

The plan was to evolve Cy by noon. We'd woken up at dawn and spent the whole morning preparing the pool for our swim, and Cy for what would hopefully be her last moments as a feebas. The parasect has perfumed the air with sweet scent and made sure the pool water was comparable in composition to that of a mountain spring, the slurpuff had made us a simple, hearty meal of tofu scramble and rawst berry jam on toast, the altaria had spent the better part of an hour making Cy's scales shine like mirrors and my face look like a movie star's, the smeargle was putting the final touches on a notepad positively brimming with instructions, advice, and doodles regarding Cy's moveset and its maintenance. All the while the mismagius had been using Rain Dance to give us an extra water boost (as well as ensure that the weather would be under his control, which would help prevent lightning strikes). At 11:45, I brought Cy's bowl over to the pool, tipped her in, and hopped in as well. It was then, with the entire helper team watching us, that we realized neither of us knew what to do next.

"Are we just supposed to swim together? Like, in a circle or something?"

"The lucario just said swim together, she didn't say how." Cy's panicked translator-tone belied her emotionless face.

"Ok then, let's not freak out, we can figure this out as we go along. Just follow my lead, and try to stay happy, ok?"

"Ok." Cy's voice was tiny.

I started swimming in an awkward growlithe-paddle, keeping my eyes on Cy the whole time. She began to follow me, and together we spiraled in an ungainly little whirlpool. After a few minutes, we decided it wasn't working.

"What if you hug her again, like you did last time you were in the pool?" The parasect volunteered.

We figured it was worth a shot, so Cy swam into my arms and I hugged her as hard as I thought would be comfortable for her.

"I don't feel any different," Cy said after a few minutes of floating together, fear edging into her voice.

"Perhaps you need to dive underwater with Cyrena, so you can be on her turf? Er..surf?" The slurpuff chuckled.

It was worth a shot, so I plugged my nose and dove under.

We swam around the bottom of the pool for a bit, her awkwardly trying to slow down, me trying to keep from floating back to the surface while occasionally taking breaks to catch my breath. That didn't seem to be it either.

"What if you talk to her while you swim?" the altaria chirped. "Tell her how proud you are!"

Even if she was wrong, I probably needed to tell Cy how much I cared about her anyway: she was starting to float sideways.

"Please don't lose hope Cy," I said, using my best reassuring-voice. "You've come so far already, and I've learned so much about you in this week alone. I've always enjoyed having you as my pokemon, but I had no idea you were such a determined, compassionate soul. Really Cy, it's crazy: most pokemon would respond to their sister being killed by throwing themselves into battle after battle in the hope of either being killed or getting strong enough to seek vengeance. And abstaining from hunting for ethical reasons? Tamed pokemon can just ask their trainers for vegetarian food, but for you it was a real sacrifice: you could have starved! This sounds sappy, but you're beautiful on the inside, and strong in the ways that really count, and I hope you believe that, because I do. I really, really do."

"That's nice, but I don't think this is working." Cy's body was inching further into a sideways slant. I was not about to have her act all depressed when we'd made so much progress, so even though we'd already tried it, I pulled her back into a hug that doubled as a way to prevent Cy from rotating her body.

"Maybe she can use coil to...hug you back? Or...she can use protect around both of you? Or something?" The smeargle was obviously trying to help, but his sodden face, and those of the other helpers, had concern written all over them. What if this _didn't_ work?

I tried to stay positive and keep my own doubts out of my voice. "That's a good idea! We haven't tried that yet! What do you say Cy? Wanna give me a coil hug?"

My little feebas, who'd been floating numbly in the pool, started to slowly wrap her tiny body around my waist. Her body was too short to manage a full coil, but it still felt like a pretty good hug. Still nothing.

"How about you try a Protect as well, huh? It'd be good practice!"

I could feel her tail fins flick across my side, and an opalescent bubble formed around us, blocking the rain and giving everything a slight echo.

"This is a nice Protect, Cy, you even made it fine enough to keep the rain out!" Positive, stay positive.

She made no response. No words came out of her translator, and save for her gills, she wasn't moving. Ok, positive wasn't working. Time to be realistic.

"Hey Cy, I wanted to let you know that even if you never evolve, you'll always have a place on my team. I won't make you fight any battles you don't want to, I won't start eating meat again, and if anybody dares to call you ugly, I'll punch them square in the jaw!" I held up a fist for good measure.

She continued to turn sideways, and there was a muffled voice from outside the Protect bubble.

"Maybe you need to dance together." The mismagius repeated.

OK, weirdest suggestion yet, but still something different. I nodded to him, and he telekinetically summoned a stereo from inside the house, along with an umbrella to keep it from short circuiting. With a flick of his ghostly hand, the stereo started playing a slow, melodic waltz.

"Just try to move in harmony: dancing is about feeling good, not looking good."

I let go of Cy to start trying to dance, and she floated sideways on the surface. I tried to smile, and she started to sink.

"Just one more shot, Cy, I promise," I begged, holding her body to keep her from sinking to the floor. "Then if this doesn't work, I'll stop and I'll let you mope as long as you want to, ok? One more shot, for me."

"Ok."

With the mismagius' instruction, we began to improvise a slow, awkward, watery waltz. Mostly, Cy swam in a v-shape while I bounced back and forth to stay parallel with her. It was ridiculous and embarrassing. Also, it was so silly it started becoming fun. I pretended to curtsey, I called Cy "the duchess of Wailords", I complimented her on her "fetching outfit with the scaley motif", and generally did and said things that were just ridiculous enough to make her giggle a bit. Cy started flicking her tail back and forth as if she were a lady holding her skirt, and when the mismagius suggested we try a spin, her translator giggled when I held her by her suitcase-handle dorsal fin and twirled her around and around. When he suggested a dip, I took it literally, and fell backward onto Cy and into the water. Under the surface, I could her the echoes of her translator laughing, and I felt her tail flip me around in a spin in an inverse of the twirl I'd just given her. This went on for a while, and we eventually forgot what we were doing and why and just kept messing around. That was when Cy started glowing.

It had been ages since I'd had a pokemon evolve, I'd almost forgotten what it looked like. And as much as I'd dreamed of seeing Cy become a milotic, the real thing felt distant and surreal. Her shining silhouette got longer and longer, it sprouted hairlike fins on her head, antenna, and a splaying fan-tail, I could feel her new form start to solidify around my legs. And then it just...stopped. There was a flash of light, and Cy snapped back to her old feebas self. And slowly, she started to rotate sideways, and sink to the bottom of the pool.

We'd failed.

 _I'd_ failed.

The rain continued to poor, and we both sat motionless as my hands pruned and Cy looked like a despondent mural engraved into the bottom of the pool.

Eventually, the helper pokemon started gently prodding us to get ready to leave. The altaria brought towels, the parasect held the door, the slurpuff disappeared into the kitchen and came back with a couple of snacks wrapped in foil for the road. I grabbed the fish bowl and, as gingerly as I could, scooped Cy into it before trudging out of the water.

"We will get through this," I whispered to her as we walked inside.

An hour later, the mismagius had let go of his Rain Dance, and it had turned into a downpour. I changed into my last clean dress: my favorite red frock that I'd hoped would complement Cy's new scales. I finished checking our room one last time to make sure I hadn't forgotten anything, and was working on removing the translator collar from Cy's neck. Then a shriek, shrill, piercing, and followed by several zapping sounds, came from the woods in front of the house.

Without thinking, I seized Cy's bowl and ran to see what was going on, sloshing water everywhere as I went. The helper pokemon had all rushed outside, and had already started yelling at a gleaming blur that was attacking a screaming kid and a mangy zigzagoon.

"What is the meaning of this?!" the mismagius yelled frantically. "Stop attacking him!"

The red gleam slowed, and congealed into a massive, mechanical, sparkling pokemon. It was the sixth helper pokemon, the red genesect.

"This thief trespassed onto my master's land and stole his property. I was addressing the problem." Its voice sounded female, metallic, and angry.

The kid, who must have been no older than twelve, clutched the zigzagoon like a lifesaver. "I only took trash! I thought no one wanted it!" he pleaded with the mismagius, eyes terrified.

"A thief is a thief, and thievery will not be tolerated." The genesect's cannon started glowing with electricity. Electricity that, in the storm the mismagius' Rain Dance had turned into, could easily electrocute any human or underleveled pokemon who was hit by it.

"No!" came a chorus from the other five helper pokemon, all of whom rushed to attack the genesect with words and techniques alike.

"We can interrogate them without hurting them!" The parasect yelled as she shook her mushroom, and a cloud of stun spore formed. The genesect zoomed through the cloud, unfazed, and knocked her away with a metallic beam from its cannon.

"Don't judge him until you understand his motives!" The slurpuff screamed as he shot off an energy ball. The genesect dodged it and smacked him into a tree with a single Slash.

"This is unfair, you shouldn't attack defenseless humans!" The altaria swooped down from behind the genesect, claws outstretched and glowing in an impending Dragon Claw. The genesect swirled around and met her with a Tri-Attack which shot out from her cannon in a braid of elements. She fell out of the sky with a soft thud.

"If you hit them, you'll kill them!" The smeargle had combined double team and quick attack to hit (and scold) the genesect from all angles. She responded by spinning her cannon about in a circle until she found the real smeargle, and sending him flying into a heap a few meters away.

"You are a disgrace to our masters!" The mismagius' voice boomed low and terrifying, like a nightmare of shame. He fired several shadow balls at the genesect, none of which seemed to do any real damage.

"I'm the only one here who's _not_ a disgrace!" she seethed, "The rest of you are weak in mind and body-none of you will protect as you were instructed to!" She fired a fierce beam of electricity and hit the mismagius square in the chest gem. He fainted instantly, and the genesect turned to advance upon her target once more.

She slowly advanced upon her prey, her cannon charging as she walked. Her body shone from the rain on her shell, the thunder in her cannon, and her own natural gleam. But nothing was brighter than the glint in her eyes. A glint that said she was enjoying this.

The zigzagoon snarled, and wriggled about trying to get free. The boy held it close, preparing to shield it with his body. The rain made it hard to tell, but I think both of them were crying.

In a voice that was pathetically small and scared, I tried to talk. To convince the genesect not to mete out justice that would amount to murder.

"You should wait for your master to come back. He'll decide what to do, and then we can find justice." Natalya's husband was a decent man. He would stop this.

The genesect paused, and turned her robotic head towards me. "You do not command me, and you do not speak for my master. I have no respect for humans who are too pathetic to make their pokemon evolve, especially when they still can't succeed despite having help from other, better humans. You and your tiny fish stay out of this, I don't want to explain to my master why his wife's pathetic "friends" were electrocuted in the rain." She returned her focus to the sodden, scrawny duo of garbage thieves and resumed charging her cannon.

"You need to stop."

The genesect shot me an annoyed glance with her pupiless eyes, but I hadn't said anything.

"Killing is awful, but sometimes it's necessary. This, however, is unnecessary and deplorable. You need to stop." Cy's translator-voice was stern and powerful.

"These urchins are trespassing thieves, and my job is to stop trespassers and thieves. If they die in the process, then it's their fault breaking a law and being too weak to survive the punishment." The genesect pointed at the boy and the zigzagoon in her shining red claws and lowered her head to prepare her cannon. She aimed, fired…

...And missed as a glowing white line shot out of Cy's bowl and deflected the electric current using a familiar opalescent bubble.

"Get out of the way," the genesect hissed through a translator voice that sounded like she had gritted her teeth. The line grew larger, and made a noise.

"Lo."

"Get out of the way!" The genesect was slashing at the Protect with her crimson claws.

"Lo!" The line sprouted head fins and antennae. Its tail started to split into pieces.

"I said, GET OUT OF THE WAY!" The genesect's translator screamed, as she broke through the protect and aimed her red, shining claw at the glowing line.

"LO!" The line twisted, and the splitting tail solidified into a crystalline fan that deflected the genesect's claw mid-swipe. Blue and red scales, each almost as shiny as the genesect, radiated out from the tail and halfway up the line, stopping when they reached a now useless translator collar that was hanging around its neck. When the scales ended, a creamy gold followed, which turned red at the hair-fins, purple at the tips of the antennae, and furious at the face.

"Last warning fish, then I stop playing nice." The genesect charged up another electric attack and aimed it straight at the milotic's...at Cy's head.

"Milotic Mi-mi," Cy spat back, and Coiled herself around the thieves like a benevolent predator. "Milotic." She tensed her muscles and braced herself for the hit.

The genesect fired the electric attack, and Cy Endured it. While the genesect charged another, Cy Recovered. When the genesect tried to seize the opening to get in a few Slash attacks, Cy called up another protect and stopped it from getting any closer. Then Endured the electric attack. Then recovered. And on and on in rapidfire succession, both sides cancelling each other out, neither one gaining any ground.

As the helper pokemon started to come to, they stared dumbfounded at the milotic currently holding her own against one of the strongest pokemon in the country. Finally, the smeargle hobbled over and whispered to me: _You have to command Cyrena to use scald, she's getting too tired to keep this up._

I looked closely, and he was right. Even with her constant recovering, Cy was getting sluggish and she was panting between her constant parries of the genesect's advances. More importantly, her scales were shining like they were made of diamond. Fortunately, the genesect seemed to be equally tired, with her mechanical movements getting slower by the round. One good attack should knock her out.

I yelled as loud as I could through the downpour and the sounds of behemoths: "CY! USE SCALD ON THE GENESECT!"

She looked confused for a second, then nodded and, after knocking the genesect away with one more Endure, began calling the raindrops together in a large sphere that hovered in front of her mouth. The genesect was coming back, but it wasn't close enough.

"HOLD IT!" I yelled, as thunder clashed somewhere far away and the genesect charged toward Cy.

The water ball was starting to give off steam, and the genesect was getting dangerously close.

"NOW!" I screamed, and Cy let go of the sphere.

But instead of shooting off into the genesect's face and knocking her out like it was supposed to, it splattered everywhere, giving everybody mild temperature burns but knocking no one out.

This was the final straw for the genesect.

"ENOUGH!" She bellowed, and with one last slash, knocked Cy's head into the ground. She fainted, uncoiled, and left the boy and the zigzagoon exposed. The genesect steadied her trembling body for one last attack, charged up her cannon,

And fainted as the zigzagoon tipped her over with a headbutt, knocking her out and sending her electric attack shooting off into the sky.

Natalya's husband came zooming in on a skarmory almost immediately (the mismagius had called him up during the fight) to deal with his genesect. Andy was appalled to hear what she had almost done, relieved that everyone was ok, and determined to work with his genesect to make sure this sort of thing never happened again. It took several months of work leave, years of reinforcement training, and the hiring of three new supervisors specifically to keep an eye on the genesect, but he eventually ironed out his genesect's excessive aggression and got her to a place where she could be expected to refrain from killing people and pokemon. I'm sure it was ridiculously expensive, but given that Andy's red genesect is the icon of his company's most lucrative sportscar, and given that she's practically impossible to replace, it was probably worth it for him.

The kid and his zigzagoon, whose names turned out to be Simon and Vroom, ended up benefitting from their near-death encounter. Apparently, they lived in a nearby mountain town and had been scavenging the trash in the hope of finding empty soda cans. Simon cut them up to make model cars, which he and Vroom would play with instead of lusting after the toy cars that were out of his family's budget. He showed us one he kept in his pocket and, according to Andy, the craftsmanship was remarkably accurate given the scale and material. So good in fact, that Andy offered him a choice between two sorry-my-pokemon-tried-to-kill-you presents. The first was a car of his own when he was old enough to drive. The second was a job at Andy's company as soon as he was qualified. Simon chose the job, and, all these years later, he and Vroom the Linoone design cars for a living, though they stay the heck away from the genesect.

As for Cyrena, she and I were both worried that she would revert back to a feebas for the first few days, but thankfully she had evolved for good this time. All of her teammates were ecstatic that Cy had finally evolved, and all of them were amazing by how objectively stunning Cy's milotic form turned out to be (Peanut immediately made a series of clicks that I'm positive was the pokemon equivalent of a "back-off-she's-mine" warning, to which Cy responded with a twining, serpentine hug and a nuzzle under his chin).

People often ask me why I don't use Cy in battles. After all, milotic are incredibly powerful, and when they hear that Cy evolved by facing off against _the red genesect_ and managed to knock out most her her health, they can't believe that I would bench such an incredible member of my team. I try to tell them that Cy doesn't like battling, and that she wasn't so much fighting the genesect as she was confronting her own demons, and now that those demons have been confronted, she doesn't really want to do it again. They usually don't get it, but fortunately, they don't have to. I'm the only one who needs to understand my pacifish, and after all we've been through together, I think I'm finally starting to.

 _Author's note:_ _And that's Cy's part, finally done (and, as of 12/5 edited significantly)! It took so long because I realized I really wanted to try and do her character justice. In other words, I've known this is how I wanted to evolve Cy for months, I just never had the guts to write it before now. I'm really happy to finally have this chapter in what I think is a finished state (at least until I rewrite it anyway) and am excited to begin writing about our anonymous trainer's as of yet unrevealed fourth pokemon. I can't tell you what she gets, but I can tell you that this is the part where we find out exactly what favor Natalya owed her for. Also, a question for anyone who reviews: I really enjoy writing stories in this particular Alternate Universe, and I have a ton of ideas I want to try out. The three that I'm considering writing after Team to Raise a Trainer are 1) a sequel to this story where anonymous trainer and her team have to confront the problems that arise when that instantaneous international transport they rely so dearly on stops working at the worst possible moment, 2) a story about Natalya's father, a famous Polish pokemon trainer during WWII (who was Jewish-yes we're going there) or 3) a continuation of Sheldon Shelton JD, PT, that little chapter I've put out so far about the lawyer who's allergic to pokemon (which may or may not have resulted in him being kindof an ignorant doof where pokemon matters are concerned-this story is basically my attempt to play with the older ignorant trainer with the uber special starter and see if I can make something interesting out of it). In an ideal world, I'd love to do all of these, but in a real world, I want to prioritize the stories that people want to read. Contact me however you see fit (reviews, pms, etc) and let me know which story interest you the most. It'll influence which one ends up getting finished first._


	16. Sweet Sixteen

My Ride

(Or Alternatively, The Pokemon World Has Karma)

Though there are no laws mandating it, most people around here have obtained three pokemon by the age of fifteen. Partly because it's easier to build a team slowly and allow the new members a few years to adapt, and partly because of an old tradition where children were expected to move out of their parents' home when they reached adulthood at the age of sixteen. These children were historically gifted three pokemon whom their parents had previously trained to help them grow up: one each on their fourth, eighth, and twelfth birthdays. One of the first things these newly minted adults were expected to do was capture a "sweet" (meaning previously untrained) pokemon of their own, tame it, and prove their mettle as independent trainers. Due to the inexperienced nature of both trainer and pokemon as well as the significance of the trainer's age, these first captures became known as "sweet sixteens".

Times have changed, and our culture with them. Children are no longer expected to leave the house at sixteen, instead leaving around their mid twenties, and parents usually only gift starter pokemon, with the expectation that kids catch the rest on their own. But the sweet sixteen has retained a vestige of cultural significance, since people still believe pokemon caught around sixteen years of age are better indicators of a trainer's potential than those caught early on (who tended to be weaker, more common, etc).

I was particularly excited for my "sweet sixteen" because, while I loved all of my pokemon dearly, I resembled the children of old in that I hadn't played an active role in choosing any of them. My parents had given me Snow, Peanut chose me, and Peanut had also chosen Cy. I was really looking forward to being able pursue a pokemon that I wanted from the start, instead of having all of my teammates fall into my lap with hardly any effort on my part. Plus, I finally had a chance to plan it out and determine which pokemon I wanted to invest effort in.

Though I didn't have a specific species in mind, I had several preferences that narrowed the possibilities significantly. First off, I knew I wanted to catch something. Buying an egg for a sweet sixteen was cheap: egg pokemon, no matter how rare, will imprint on just about any trainer who raises them to maturity. I also knew I wanted a new type, ever since another trainer's cubone had knocked Snow out in a single hit only to be completely unable to touch Peanut I'd decided I didn't want to be a specialist. Something I could ride on over land would be nice: Peanut had sky travel in the bag, and Cy would eventually be able to ferry me over water, but having something for fast land travel was important too.

My parents, who had previously allowed me to catch whatever I pleased so long as it didn't destroy the house, antagonize their pokemon, or attempt to eat people, also had their own requirement: they wanted me to catch something that was emblematic of my region, and would remind me of home even when I was far away. Mareep aren't local, zubat are but that's because they live on six out of seven continents, and I caught Cy in Texas. While this meant no crazy exotic-pokemon-catching expeditions like some kids did for their sweet sixteen, I had to admit they had a point about the importance of training at least one distinctly local pokemon.

Of course, I was willing to forego any of these requirements if something exceptionally rare came along. Which it did.

 _Mai-Danishgirl: Glad I managed to surprise you! Thank you so much for all of your thoughtful reviews, they really mean a lot to me :) I hope you continue to enjoy the course this story follows!_

 _Hi i read things: Good to hear you enjoyed the battle! Regarding the genesect, there are a few things I can clear up. First off is her relationship to the rest of the helper pokemon: the red genesect is the only pokemon who belongs to someone in Natalya's family (that being her husband, Andy). The rest of them are hired by Natalya to do their specific jobs, similar to how Snow is trained to clean water with electricity and Peanut is a certified diver. They all belong to different trainers, and when they haven't been "rented" by Natalya for things like anonymous trainer's weeklong getaway, they each go home to separate places (some of which are really far away) at night._

 _In terms of the red genesect's character, would you believe me if I said I think she's actually quite tolerant by her species' standards? One of the things I really wanted to explore in this story was sentient pokemon who had animalistic tendencies, and how those tendencies might conflict with human norms. I imagine that as a species, genesect behave like sentient crosses between tigers and t-rexs: fierce, solitary killers who can be convinced to listen to exceptional humans, but will not take tolerance of an individual to mean that they shouldn't kill humans with no additional significance. By those standards, this genesect was already pretty restrained in that she waited for a non-significant human to break a rule before trying to hunt him down-there are several wild genesect who, unless a super powerful trainer manages to convince them otherwise, will kill for entertainment alone. How Andi managed to tame such a ferocious beast, even to the level that we saw during the battle, is a story that I might include eventually, but for now, I think I've probably said enough._


	17. Satin

In October the year before my sixteenth birthday, I found and captured Satin. It was almost surreal in hindsight, like those fairy tales you hear where one day someone's just going along minding their own business and them BAM! A rare pokemon is just lying injured on the side of the road waiting for them to catch it, heal it, and train it up.

It was two thirty on a Thursday morning, Peanut had convinced me to take him flying. I'd just finished my homework, and, being the nocturnal teenager that I was, didn't want to go to bed yet. Peanut, being the nocturnal crobat that he is, didn't want to go to bed either, and saw the chance to beg for a night flight. I thought it was too cold, but after multiple adorable noises and wide-eyed looks, I relented and got my coat. A bleary-eyed Snow and a droopy Cy were both recalled into their pokeballs to rest: I wanted to have them on hand in case something bad happened.

We'd just left home, and were flying over a park when we saw a faint glimmer on the ground below. Both of us were curious, I thought it was a piece of trash that should probably be thrown away while Peanut thought it might be something we could sell to buy candy, so we landed to check it out. I called out Snow and asked her to light up her forehead. She did, and by the glow of her bulb we saw a grey, furry lump with what I really hoped was just red-lightbulb-tinted water all over its body. I edged closer, and was saddened to discover that it wasn't-blood which was seeping from several deep puncture wounds along what I think might have been its back. It wasn't moving, but it didn't feel right to poke it to see it if was still alive. Instead, I took out my spare pokeball and caught it as gently as I could. The pokeball would keep the pokemon in suspended animation while we brought it to a pokemon center, where they should be able to heal it up if it was alive, and dispose of it if it wasn't.

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As soon as we landed and I told the nurse at reception what had happened, she grabbed my pokeball and flew into the operating room, where the night surgeon and her miltank immediately started prepping the anaesthesia. Once the operation was under way, she came back and asked semi-intrusive questions about how I found the pokemon, what other species I trained, and I was out so late on a school night.

When she heard I had a crobat, she asked to examine Peanut's teeth. I didn't understand why until she pulled up his gums and sighed with relief that none of his teeth were anywhere near narrow enough to have caused the puncture wounds peppering the pokemon's body. I was a little taken aback by that.

"I told you I found that pokemon already injured!"

"That's the answer we always get. It never hurts to check and investigate if there's another possibility, especially when shiny pokemon are involved."

If the nurse wanted any further confirmation that I wasn't guilty of any attempted shiny-poaching, she got it from the utterly befuddled look on my face.

"It was _shiny_?"

"I thought you knew that, you said you only landed because you saw a glimmer in the darkness?"

"I stopped thinking when I saw all the blood and didn't put it together," I replied sheepishly. "Speaking of which, I didn't stop to take a good look at it, what species was it anyway?"

She gave one of those looks that was a cross between amusement and astonishment. "It's an eevee."

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 _Mai Danishgirl- I couldn't resist. Also, it was fun to try and reimagine the cult of women's purity from the perspective of pokemon :D_

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 _Also, I'm horrible at formatting so I've been resorting to ending my chapters at each big reveal. While it does mean you guys have to wait longer to find out exactly what I have planned for this, it also means I can post portions earlier and get feedback on certain sections in time to really do something about it. Anything you want me to consider going forward? Anything you haven't enjoyed so far?_

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 _Hi I read things- I didn't phrase it particularly clearly, so it's understandable that you didn't get it. I've promised myself that I'll go back and edit each chapter when I finally manage to finish this (which I'm aiming to do by the end of the month), and when I do I'll try to clear that up a bit._

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 _The tradition of pokemon working either alongside their trainer or for outside pay is a longstanding one. You'd be correct in your assumption that the default, and formerly only, option is for the working pokemon to cede their wages to their trainer with the understanding that the trainer will then use that money to better both the individual pokemon and the team as a whole. Of course, this doesn't always happen, and for quite a while there was nothing a pokemon could do about it-their trainer knew best, even if "knowing best" meant spending money on frivolous or destructive things for the trainer's own benefit. This isn't something I think I'll be going into in this story, because Anonymous Trainer is generally the sort of responsible human who uses her pokemon's money to pay for things her pokemon want and need, but if she wasn't, her pokemon would have three options. The first is to petition for release, which is being used less as trainers get better about consensual captures and a higher portion of trained pokemon genuinely want human input in their lives. The second is to petition for transfer: usually to a human whom the pokemon already knows and trusts. This is getting easier and easier to accomplish legally, but it's got its own issues-most notably when the human feels they have enough pokemon already/seems unqualified to address any pre-existing issues the pokemon might have. The third and final option is to petition for control over one's own finances. This one's the hardest to get: one of the assumptions the people in this world make about the human-pokemon bond is that pokemon are impulsive creatures with no money management skills, so they need humans to help control those impulses and make sure the pokemon are getting what they need, not what they want. It's patronizing, but there's decent evidence indicating that pokemon's brains really are more impulsive, so I think it'll be a while before this becomes a common solution, if ever._

 _._

 _Regarding the new pokemon, were you surprised? Feel like guessing where I'm going with this? Also, like I told Mai-one of the benefits of this sort of short-chapter submission rate is that I can change things if necessary-anything you want to see more of in the future? Anything you'd rather not see again?_


	18. Crying Checkbook Wealthy Lady

According to the nurse, I'd kindof short-circuited after hearing that I had apparently captured a shiny eevee. She'd ask me a question, I'd respond with a groan and an incoherent mumble and I kinda looked like I was going to fall over, so she'd pushed me into one of the seats in the waiting area and made sure I didn't fall off. It must have been an hour or so before I stopped acting so _hilarious_ and was coherent enough to speak proper Human English.

My first question was about whether an evolution stone also needed to be shiny to evolve a shiny pokemon or if a normal one would work.

"My guess is there's no difference," the nurse mused. "Shiny pokemon are pretty much the same as the regular ones, they just have a lot of eye issues. Pigment's not right, but I can imagine _literally_ seeing stars every time you look at yourself doesn't help."

"Do I...need to buy it glasses?"

The nurse laughed at that. "Darkglasses maybe. They've very sensitive to light, but I think there are special contacts for that now. Still gotta watch out for sunburns though, especially with the white shinies like eevee."

"Oh. That makes sense. Anything else I should know?"

"Yeah, there's a special registry for shiny pokemon. The government tracks them, since there's a major risk of shiny pokemon ending up in breeding mills. Trainers used to self register, but lately they've been asking the pokemon centers to…" Her expression changed into one of horror, like she'd seen a banette looking in her window the month after throwing away her plush teddiursa.

"Bloody Unown!" The nurse rushed back behind her desk and started frantically tapping the computer. "That eevee's been in surgery since three and it's four fifteen!"

The nurse asked me a few more questions in a frenzied slur: "Whereexactleededyoufinit?"

I answered as fast as my tired brain would let me: "Seadrapark".

"Familyeverhaveashiny?"

"No."

"Everconvinctedofacrime?"

"Never."

The flurry of questions stopped, and her head flicked back and forth as she mumbled to herself. Then she clicked what I assumed was a "submit" button, and collapsed back onto her chair.

"Don't tell anyone that was late, my supervisor will kill me."

I promised, only for the emergency teleporter in the corner to activate and a stocky, balding man to enter the room. Judging by the nurse's horrified expression and scramble to sit up straight and look professional, this was the aforementioned supervisor.

"There's a shiny eevee in the operating room?" he asked the nurse, who nodded hesitantly.

"I'll be right back." He turned on his heel and walked back into the teleporter, only to emerge a second later accompanied by an woman with a wrinkled dress, disheveled hair, and runny eyeliner that gave her zigzagoon-eyes. She bolted to the doors of the operating room and started crying the instant she looked in the window. "It's her! It's her!"

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The woman claimed she was the eevee's owner, that she had purchased her from a breeder in Billings four weeks ago, and had just picked her up yesterday. Her flight transfer had delayed, so she'd stayed in a hotel for the night. During that time, she'd been distracted by a very important call, and when she came back her eevee had gotten out somehow and she couldn't find it anywhere.

When the nurse asked why the woman hadn't just kept her eevee in her pokeball, them woman responded that she had commissioned a special, custom pokeball for her eevee and that it wouldn't be finished for another week.

The nurse and the supervisor exchanged nervous glances.

"So, you never actually caught your eevee?"

The woman's eyes widened. "I didn't think I had to."

The supervisor gulped, straightened his tie, and started to explain: "Well…"

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Turns out that capturing an injured shiny pokemon is a legal grey area. Back in the days when people didn't ask to capture pokemon, there was an implicit assumption that capture was good for the pokemon, and that they would benefit from it. With the advent of the translator, however, humans started to recognize that not all pokemon wanted to be trained, and it wasn't always best for them. The culture shifted, and consensual captures became the norm, except for two cases: shiny pokemon and sick or injured pokemon.

One of the most notable discoveries made with the translator was that shiny pokemon lived very hard lives in the wild. The previous assumption had been that they were highly successful, as shiny pokemon are considered highly attractive by humans and pokemon alike. But what the humans hadn't considered was that sparkling with every step or swish or flap is only helpful where reproduction is concerned. Otherwise is was a liability: shiny predators gave away their position to their prey and risked starving to death if they couldn't find some unconventional (or blind) source of food, and shiny prey found it impossible to camouflage or hide. Both had lower lifespans in the wild than their non-shiny brethren. The result of this is that capturing shiny pokemon is seen as an act of necessary compassion, and shiny pokemon are not afforded the same rights to dissent as other pokemon, and for their own safety are not permitted to return to the wild.

Second, it was discovered that regardless of what their previous stance on freedom might have been, pokemon imprinted heavily upon humans whom they perceived to have saved their lives. Due to this phenomenon, as well as the argument that trainers who capture pokemon in order to save their lives are responsible for the pokemon's continued existence, the law generally takes a "finders keepers" stance when it came to injured pokemon.

The supervisor explained that, because the wild, injured shiny eevee was a perfect storm of vulnerability, and because she hadn't been captured previously and was only recently obtained, a court would likely give custody of the eevee to me. This brought fresh tears to the disheveled woman's face, and she started to sob.

The supervisor, clearly uncomfortable with the tears, attempted to reassure her. "Well, it's not a guarantee, and you clearly care about the eevee, maybe a jury will side with you if you decide to sue."

The word _sue_ brought my heartbeat into my ears. In a muffled tone, I heard the woman, who was by now even more hysterical, say something about secrets and wasted work.

The nurse was trying to say something to me. She was staring at me and moving her lips. I gave her what was most likely a dazed expression for the nth time that night, and she rolled her eyes and repeated her question.

"Would you be willing to sell her the eevee?"

This seemed to cheer up Crying Lady, who immediately flipped open a checkbook and stood poised with a pen, staring at me with a bizarre mixture of intent and desperation.

"I'll give you ten thousand dollars for her."

"Ten thousand? That's way too low for an eevee!" The nurse had apparently taken my side in the argument. "Give her thirty grand for saving your shiny pet who almost got itself killed because you thought it was too good for a regular pokeball!"

Crying Checkbook Wealthy Lady shot her an annoyed glance. "I was keeping very good track of her without the pokeball. She only got away because I had a work emergency. But I can do thirty thousand if that'll be the end of it. But, you also have to sign a Non-disclosure contract," She reached into her purse and pulled out a folded piece of paper, which she passed to me. "I don't want the world to know about my Eevee until December twentieth, so you can't tell _anyone_ that this happened until December twenty-first."

"What, we don't get any hush money? We're saving your sparkledog's life you know!"

"You two," she pointed at the nurse and the supervisor, "are under oath. She," a finger jerked back at me, "is not. So unless you want to convince her to donate some of the money, I won't be paying either of you."

The threat of having to negotiate with strangers at two in the morning over hush money I wasn't prepared for was the straw that broke the camerupt's back for me. I panicked, so I did what my panicky self always does. I made the problem go away.

"What if I just give you the eevee? For free?"

Oh Unown, the looks of astonishment on their faces wouldn't been priceless if it wasn't four in the morning and I hadn't spent the past few hours pinballing from one shock to the next. Now it was their turn to have no idea what was going on.

The nurse reacted first.

"Seriously?!"

She also gave me a look that said "What is wrong with you?!"

The supervisor responded next. He looked relieved, I think, to hear a solution that would almost certainly keep Crying Checkbook Wealthy Lady from crying again. Maybe she could just be Regular Checkbook Wealthy Lady now.

"Huh. I..really wasn't expecting that." Crying Checkbook Wealthy Lady sounded interested more than anything. "Why would you give up a shiny eevee for free, even after I offered to pay you?"

"Because," I gulped, my voice sounding hollow. "I don't know how to apply sunscreen, and I don't have darkglasses, and I don't know anything about the laws of keeping shiny pokemon, and, I feel sick just thinking about this and," I winced, "if a shiny eevee is so valuable that you offered me ten thousand dollars and then raised it to thirty immediately, then that means that everyone's going to be telling me what I should have done for the rest of my life regardless of what I choose here. And if you pay me, then I still have to explain how I suddenly made all this money without doing anything illegal and the story's going to come out and I'll never hear the end of people telling me what I should have done! That's just...too much...and I'm way too tired...to make important decisions right now."

"Well alright then," Crying Checkbook Wealthy Lady, who was now Smiling Checkbook Wealthy Lady, rummaged around in her purse again, this time pulling out a business card and scribbling on it.

"I still need you to sign the agreement saying you won't tell anyone about my eevee until the date specified, but if you want to wait to discuss what I owe you, then you can call this number," she handed me the scribbled business card, "when you're ready to talk. Make sure you do it before the end of the month, though. We need to discuss ticket numbers," she winked at me, and scribbled on three more business cards, one for the supervisor, one for the nurse, and one for the surgeon still working in the back. Then she addressed all of us: "Call that number and tell the man who answers that Satin owes you a favor. He should put you through to the right people, and we'll get you all set up. In the meantime, make sure you have December twenty-first off of work" she looked at the medical professionals, "and school," she looked at me, "and that you all wear something stunning!" And with that, she clapped her hands and started walking around the reception area "Now, does this place have an actual shower or am I going to have to wash up in one of those decontamination showers? I'm not going outside looking like this you know!"

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 _Aaaand now we know what favor Crying Checkbook Wealthy Lady, a.k.a. Natalya owes our Anonymous Trainer for. Yes, AT's reaction was kindof ridiculous, but you have to remember that she was exhausted after being bombarded with one reveal after another at four in the morning. Also, the more stressed this character gets, the more she responds by making ridiculous, grand gestures that she has to answer to later (see: turning vegetarian because she put her foot in her mouth that one time)._

 _For those of you who really wanted to see AT get a shiny eevee: Satin will still be a character in the story, she just belongs to Natalya. I wanted to try to explore some of the implications of shiny pokemon without actually giving AT one, since in this world they're really rare, really valuable, and basically turn their trainers into celebrities. That's not a direction I wanted to go with this character, however I have an as of yet unannounced side project (that ever-so-conveniently ties in with the event that will be occurring on Dec 21st) which might provide an avenue for such exploration. Her actual fourth pokemon will be revealed before she leaves the Pokemon Center, and it'll be one that's guaranteed to have no conflicts of interest surrounding its capture :D_

 _Haselnut: Thank you so much for your kind words, reviews like yours make me want to spend all my time writing this story! And yeah, Peanut's my favorite character too. He started out as just a random zubat that I wanted AT to catch because OTs never train zubat and that frustrates me. Then I wrote his entire chapter in one sitting, and was amazed by how his character just kindof jumped out of it. Since you said you enjoy the Author's Notes reveals, here's a couple just for you :)_

 _1) I based Peanut's love of water off of the thought that in this world, the conditions under which pokemon evolve can have an effect on the personality of their future stages. Peanut, who evolved from a zubat to a golbat at the bottom of a pool, became fond of water because it was the first thing he felt when he evolved, so his body perceives it as more natural than it otherwise would (which is also how I imagine divergent evolution happens in this world-enough pokemon evolve under the right circumstances and eventually they start to acquire different traits as they evolve)._

 _2) Peanut evolving at the bottom of a pool also might have had an effect on his orientation, making him attracted to water types. Humans have around three sexually-related spectrums: sexual orientation, gender identity, and the sexual-asexual spectrum. Pokemon have all of those, in addition to specifying if, and if so how much, a certain pokemon is attracted to members of its own egg group. One of the kinder terms for these pokemon is "players" . Peanut, having fallen in love with a feebas, is a player (Cy is also "playing" because she's in a relationship with an incompatible pokemon, but she's not technically a fully fledged player because she naturally leans more toward compatible pokemon)._

 _Mai Danishgirl: Oh yes, I made sure I picked the most obvious cliche I could ;D Partly because I'm frustrated that the "fairy tales" in AT's world end up being how most Trainer Fics actually play out, and partly because I wanted to address the sort of hype culture that would inevitably form around shiny eevees and what they evolve into (that part's coming)._

 _Cy was actually a last minute change to AT's team, since my initial plan had been to choose pokemon that were less popular, however I ended up adding her in when I realized that I could play with the ridiculousness of a beauty evolution and all the issues that might have. The funny thing is, this was right after I had finished Peanut's chapter, and his love of water actually transitioned really nicely into him becoming an advocate for another pokemon who, like him, has a weak and puny first stage and requires a talented trainer to reach its final form._

 _Finally, for those of you who've made it this far into author's notes nominally intended for two people, I have a very important question for you. The side project I mentioned earlier on is one where I'd be really, really interested in hearing any stories you have with finding shiny pokemon in the games, either through random encounters or through breeding. Let me know these if you have them are are interested in helping me with my mystery project!_


	19. Recovery Room

It was six in the morning. The surgeon had finished stitching up the wounds and the eevee, whose name was apparently Satin, had been transferred to the recovery ward. Crying Checkbook Wealthy Lady, whose business card said her name was Natalya Kowalski, had gone off to take a shower in the employee lounge a couple hours ago, and hadn't come back out: presumably she'd gone to be with her eevee. Scheduled appointments didn't start until nine, so the nurse, who introduced herself to me as Maddie, had called out her furret and spent the past couple hours playing with her pokemon. I, meanwhile, had gone back to the waiting area and was lying on a sofa, staring at the ceiling, and trying and failing to sleep.

"Hey."

I looked over. Maddie was staring at me.

"You ok?"

I mumbled something back that even I didn't understand.

"Whatever that was, it wasn't a yes. Are you, like, shell shocked or something? Do you want some water?"

I nodded, and she left the room, returning shortly with a bit of water in a paper cone. She sat down next to me, and her furret came slinking up to nuzzle into the space between us.

"You know, If I were you, I would've told Natalya what for and kept the eevee for myself, and there would have been nothing she could do about it. I still don't get why you didn't, but it's kinda admirable, in a stupid way."

A snicker escaped my mouth at that. "Yeah. Maybe it was kinda stupid. But I don't think I regret it. Besides, the eevee was technically already trained. I was kinda hoping to follow the rules of the Sweet Sixteen and catch something that was actually wild, not an escaped pet."

"Wait, that eevee would've been your _Sweet Sixteen?!_ " Maddie's jaw'd dropped. "That would've been amazing! You'd go down as like, the most awesome trainer _ever_!"

I sighed. "Yeah, but it would've been because I got lucky, not because I actually did anything interesting. And besides, I wouldn't have found her if Peanut hadn't wanted to go night flying, which makes him more responsible for this than I was: all I did was catch her and bring her to the center like you're supposed to."

Maddie snorted. "You say that like catching the pokemon isn't the most important part! And besides, you caught your other pokemon, right?"

I explained that between my parents gifting me Snow and Peanut doing the brunt work of getting both himself and Cy on my team, I hadn't actually chosen anyone yet. Sure, I'd caught them, but that had just been tapping them with pokeballs, I hadn't battled them or convinced them or done anything to show I was someone who could earn a pokemon's trust.

"That's why I really want my sweet sixteen to be a pokemon that I choose because _I_ want _it_. Not because it wants me, or my parents want it, or it wants my other pokemon, or it owes me for saving its life."

"Hhrrmm. Well, if what you really want is to choose a pokemon and convince it, why don't you come take a look at our recovering wilds? We've got all sorts of species, so you could look around and see what interests you, and most of them are going to be stuck here for a week at least, so you have time to try to convince them before they get released, and," she smiled, "I can guarantee you that no crying wealthy lady is going to come barging at all hours of the night and say those pokemon actually belong to her! Come on!" she grabbed my hand and pulled me up, spilling some of the water in the process, "We still have a couple of hours before the appointments start and my shift ends, and this place is _dead_! Rhett!" She called out to the furret, who perked up his ears. "Hang out at the front desk and let me know over the intercom if anybody comes in!" The furret dripped off the couch in the waiting area and tottered lethargically over to the front desk. "Fur fur~"

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Maddie pulled me through several sets of doors until we reached a small indoor garden. Several pokemon were relaxing there, most of them with bandages around some part of their body, although I distinctly remember seeing an electrike with a cone around its head.

"This is the recovery enclosure. Wild pokemon who have been injured are kept here until they can recover. People looking for a new pokemon can come visit these guys and try to convince them to join their teams before they recover, but the decision is ultimately up to the pokemon."

There were around two dozen pokemon, all local species. I saw several birds playing in a large birdbath-mostly pidgey and fletchling, but also a murkrow and even a rowlet. The elektrike was playing with a vanillite, and a couple of geodude were sleeping in the shade of some pine trees. A lunatone was hovering off in the corner, staring at the ceiling.

Maddie frowned. "Most of them are here, but where's...You!"

She was yelling at something behind me, which then proceeded to knock me face first into the dirt and stand with its hooves digging into my back, sniffing my neck.

"Get off of her!" Maddie screamed. The thing jumped off and cantered away, which seemed to make Maddie angrier. "You stop running right now or I'll tie you to the post again! You need to let your lungs rest!"

She stumbled after the pokemon, which looked like a small, antlerless stantler with a large swath of bandages around its chest. It was hopping about, sending the birds flying and flipping over the geodudes with its kicks. It then licked the vanillite, who blew an icy wind into its face and covered it with frost. That got it to stop long enough that Maddie could get a collar around its neck and drag it over to a stout pole with a leash attached. A few seconds later, and the little stantler was safely anchored to the post, though it continued to pull on its leash. Maddie trudged back over to me with a look of utter frustration.

"That little headache's here because she pissed off an ursaring. Got some bad gashes that are definitely going to scar, as well as several cracked ribs and bruised lungs. She was supposed to be out yesterday, but she's been running around so much she won't let her lungs heal, so we have to keep her for another week." She scowled at the stantler, who was biting on the post. "Maybe I should put you in the panic room for a week, huh? You want that?" she yelled. The stantler remained oblivious and continued to chew on the post. Maddie facepalmed. "And quit doing that! You'll swallow a splinter!"

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 _Thank you to Mai and Haselnut for their paraise and shiny pokemon stories-I think I can work with those XD Anyone else who feels like telling me about their experiences catching or breeding a shiny pokemon in the games, I'd love to know them!_


	20. Mayhem

"Wow. You're even weirder than I thought, and I already knew you were a weirdo!" was Maddie's reaction when she heard that I thought the stantler was amusing and wanted to see if I could befriend it. "Don't you want to train something...you know... _reasonable?_ "

Truth be told, I was kinda surprised that I wanted the stantler as well. I mean, I thought stantler were way cuter than most people gave them credit for, so it wasn't surprising that I wanted _a_ stantler, but _this_ stantler somehow...appealed to me, beyond the attractions of her species.

Perhaps it was her behavior. All of my other pokemon were well behaved and always had been-the worst I had to deal with was trying to keep them from eating too much, and I usually just had to tell them "no" and put the food away to make them stop. But the stantler was a real wild child: getting her to listen would be a challenge that would really test my training skills in a way that would make her a great candidate for a Sweet Sixteen pokemon. And even if I failed or if she rejected me, it's not like her behavior could get much worse than it already was, and I'd know more about how to approach the next pokemon I tried to befriend.

I told Maddie I wanted to test my skills and she laughed at that, saying that stantler would test more than just my skills: I better have ample patience and a hearty sense of masochism as well. But she agreed to put my name on the "permitted" list so that I could try, and for the next week, I visited the stantler fawn in the pokemon center every day.

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At first, I tried to get her to do what I wanted by offering treats. I'd brought a bag of mixed berry bits, and after figuring out that the chestos were her favorite (also, that the tamato and cheri berries were to be avoided at all costs-they seemed to cause her physical pain), I tried to teach her a few simple commands using chestos as incentive. That...failed miserably. She learned the commands just fine, but either didn't want to or was unable to stop from running over and sniffing every new person and pokemon who entered the room.

Next, I tried the squirt bottle. It was the same as the treats in that it worked well until it didn't: she'd still accost strangers by knocking them over and smelling them.

It was only after doing some research on the third day that I realized the stantler was frisking people, and that's why she wouldn't stop. Pokemon abilities are tricky things that require deliberate practice to control, but I knew it could be done. Furthermore, I didn't need research to tell me how to fix it.

Like most of her kind, Snow has Static. And like most of my kind, Four-year-old-me loved nothing more than to give her fluffy starter frequent, tight hugs. It resulted in a lot-and I mean a lot-of trips to the drugstore for pediatric grade Paralyz Heal. But on the bright side, now I have significant experience in teaching a pokemon to control their ability.

My mom had trained Snow to decide when she wanted to paralyze people by having her vileplume hold a bit of bread and when Snow approached her and tried to eat it, activating his effect spore. Snow couldn't be paralyzed, and she rarely remembered what happened when she fell asleep, but all it took was a couple of rounds of mild poisoning to get her to realize that she really, really didn't like what she was feeling. Once empathy was established, it became a matter to getting her to think consciously about who she was paralyzing, and why. I did this by alternating between holding a piece of bread myself, which Snow would only be allowed to eat if she didn't paralyze me, and putting a piece of bread on a plate and asking Fluff, my dad's noctowl to guard it by pressing against Snow and keeping her from getting near it. Since Snow couldn't defeat Fluff at that point, and since Fluff's Intimidate made it hard to use Thunder Wave, her only option if she wanted the bread was to use Static to paralyze him so he couldn't chase her. This plan worked pretty well, and after a couple of months Snow was able to decide for herself whether she wanted to paralyze those who touched her.

I was lucky in that Snow was a perfect counterweight with which to train the stantler to control herself. Since Static is only activated by touch, it would teach the stantler that frisking people specifically was the problem, and since Snow had previous experience with overactive abilities, she would be the perfect role model for helping the stantler learn discipline.

Snow's job was to walk in and out of the recovery room every few minutes, holding a chesto berry. When the stantler inevitably ran up to frisk her, she would be paralyzed before she got a chance to eat it. But on the times when I deliberately told her to Frisk, Snow wouldn't use her Static, and the stantler's reward was being able to eat the berry she'd found. After a couple days of practice, it became like a fifth move that she could use at will: frisking when told to, and generally abstaining otherwise. She'd also started to look up to Snow figuratively as well as literally. My guess is that Snow had told her about the experiences she'd had as a mareep, and they'd resonated with the young stantler. I also suspect that Snow talked me up to her, but I tried not to think about it too much.

The day before the stantler was supposed to be released was a Friday, so I came straight from school and spent the better part of the day trying to convince the stantler that I was a good fit for her as a trainer, and that life with me would be better than life in the wild. I pulled out all the stops: I let her try prepared food (in this case, a salty stew with chesto and cornn), I brought a kid's movie and let her watch it while I brushed her coat, and I scratched the spot on her head where her antlers would come in. I introduced her to my other teammates and showed her pictures of the house we lived in together and the vacations we would go on. With Maddie's permission (and the promise that I would pay for any damages incurred) I even rented a room in the center and let the stantler sleep with my team and me to see how she liked it: she curled up under Snow's tail, and the light seemed to help her sleep faster.

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The next day, Maddie gave her one last check up and pronounced her fit to be free. That was my cue: with the help of Eric, whom I'd bribed with cookies, I asked the stantler if she wanted to be my pokemon. The stantler said yes, that she would love to watch movies and eat good food and get brushed all the time, and that her parents would love it too. I tried to tell her that while she would still be able to do all of those things, it wouldn't be every day, and that I would only be able to train her, so she would be away from her parents except for a few times when I might be able to take her to visit. This concerned her, so Maddie suggested that I accompany her to drop the stantler at her release point so we could talk with her parents.

Eric had taken the passenger seat in the front of the truck, so I stayed in the back with the stantler. She was understandably scared: it was dim and cramped and loud, and I didn't need a translator to know that her cries meant she was missed her parents. They weren't there, so I tried to keep her calm in their place: I pet her fur, I sang her a lullaby about a chatot, and most importantly, I called out Snow. By the lights of her head and tail and the sound of her crooning string of "ampharos", the stantler stopped whimpering and gradually fell asleep.

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We reached the drop off point after an hour of driving, and Maddie threw open the back door of the truck to reveal a massive herd of fully antlered stantler, several of whom tried to jump into the compartment only to be blocked by Eric's Reflect. Once the chaos of several stantler all presumably having frisk had subsided, Snow and I helped the little stantler down. She promptly ran over to two individuals whom I guessed were her parents, and with Eric's help, we started discussing the possibility of my training their baby.

Both the stantler's mother and father were happy that their daughter had attracted the interest of a trainer, as few stantler are chosen to benefit from domestic life, however they were adamant about their daughter growing up in the wild. She needs to hone her survival instincts, they said, in case she gets released later on and finds herself on her own. I tried to allay their fears by saying I never released my pokemon, but was interrupted by an older stantler who had apparently had a trainer say the same thing, only to release him when they caught something "better". Fair point, it's not like they had any reason to believe I'd be different.

We eventually settled on a compromise: the stantler would stay wild until my sixteenth birthday in March, when she would be over a year old with her first set of antlers and enough knowledge to survive on her own if need be. Meanwhile, I would come and visit her and the herd every week, bringing something nice to demonstrate that I was interested in maintaining a continued relationship with all of them (as well as give the others a taste of the trained life, which most of them were unlikely to ever experience). And finally, I was to bring her to visit them at least once a season until her parent's deaths, so they wouldn't be away from her forever. My only caveat was that the stantler accompany me to Natalya's event, to which the stantlers agreed, and after months of preparing large amounts of food, learning how to show movies in the snow, and getting my workouts from brushing dozens of stantler in a day, I approached the stantler herd on the morning of my sixteenth birthday with a pokeball in my hand, and my stantler ran up to me and captured herself.

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I named her Mayhem, or May for short.

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. (P.S. The specifics of the Dec 20th event is going to happen in a separate story. Check it out if you're curious about Natalya, Satin, and most importantly, whether or not May can sit still in a crowded auditorium.)

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 _Mai: I'm not surprised Maddie makes you a bit uncomfortable: I designed her to be a foil for AT, so if you agree with AT's actions and perspective, you're likely to disagree with Maddie's. She's got a lot of experience with...not neglect per se, but with what she perceives as poor training on the part of a lot of the people who come into the center, so as a consequence she feels very strongly that actions, not money, should be what determines a pokemon's trainer. Regarding the her reaction to Natalya's crying, that's actually one of Maddie's most professional qualities (she doesn't have many)-she's immune to sob stories. Because of this, she doesn't fall for emotionally abusive perpetual-victim type trainers who can charm the wings off a wingull and make him think it's his fault, and she won't excuse poor behavior just because someone starts crying about their intentions. Again, action is what matters to Maddie, whereas AT is exceptionally vulnerable to any sort of emotional display._

 _BlankHeroes: thanks for the wingull story! I'm pretty sure I can work with this, but if you don't mind, may I ask you why you named him Remi?_

 _Stolloss: Thank you so much for your kind words, they are sincerely appreciated :)_


	21. Shining Time

_Author's note: This takes place in the middle of the previous chapter, during the weeks when Anonymous Trainer is visiting the stantler herd and waiting for May to be old enough to capture. I had previously been planning on making this a separate story (as in, I posted the first part of this as its own spinoff story) focusing exclusively on a talk show where people who have shiny pokemon are interviewed, but it was pointed out to me that such a thing would be pretty boring to read. One suggested alternative was to put intermission chapters in this fic featuring different sorts of tv shows, articles, etc depending on what I want to write about. Does that sound like something you'd be interested in? Let me know, along with any other thoughts you might have!_

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"Stop struggling!" I scolded. "You have dreadlocks, and I need to brush them out!"

"Sta-aaaan!" my little fawn whined, "Stantler Stantler!"

"Yeah well it'll hurt less if you stop moving, you're pulling your fur!" I brushed as efficiently as I could, and wrestled the feral stantler to the ground to apply some fur gel. Once I was done, I wiped the sweat triumphantly off my face and gazed at my handwork. "There! Now take a look," I pointed to the mirror, "see how pretty you are?"

The stantler gazed at her own gleaming reflection, awestruck. "Ler…"

"I told you so! Next time you need to listen to me when I say something will be worth it!"

"Stantler stan stan ler stant ler," she chuckled, nuzzling my ribs with her still-oily snout.

"That means you're not going to listen to me, doesn't it?"

"Ler."

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Once the stantler was ready, I checked in on my other pokemon. Snow was diligently polishing her lightbulbs, Peanut was slicking his purple fur by dipping his back wings in gel, and Cy was sitting demurely in her bowl, scales polished and shiny.

"Snow, keep an eye on the stantler-make sure she doesn't break anything, eat anything, or get herself or you dirty, ok?"

"Ampharos!" she stopped shining her bulb and wandered off to look for the stantler.

With Snow on stantler duty, I finally had a chance to shower and get ready. I applied my makeup as subtly as I could, braided my hair into an intricate knot, and slipped into a lavender cocktail dress I'd bought just for the occasion. Peanut and Cy confirmed that I looked great and didn't need to add anything, and we were ready to go.

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Natalya Kowalski's tv show is normally broadcast in a studio in Chicago, but she liked to emphasize special occasions with a change of scenery. For this year's Holiday Special, she'd decided to film in the historic (and very shiny) Golden Tauros theater in Billings, Montana.

The theater was massive, ornate, and very, very golden. Embossed tauros decorated the balconies and circled about the chandelier, and delicate yellow flowers bloomed among them. Hundreds of seats faced a magnificent crimson curtain, and hundreds of beautifully dressed people and beautifully groomed pokemon were filing into those seats in a parade of elegance and finery.

We found our seats in the front row-Natalya had been gracious enough to provide one seat each for myself and my team. However, since I thought it was important to bring the stantler along despite her not being a member of my team just yet, Peanut and Cy had volunteered to share a chair to make room for her, and all of them had agreed to let the stantler sit next to me so I could keep an eye on her.

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It wasn't long before the lights dimmed and the show's intro began to play from the orchestral pit below. It had been remixed to appear more festive, with bells and a chimecho in the background. The curtain lifted, and a voice rang out over the audience:

" _Live From Billings, Montana, please welcome Natalya Kowalski for this special Holiday presentation of Shining Time!"_

Raucous applause erupted from the classy-looking audience as Natalya stepped out center stage with a flourish. She was dressed in a silver gown that glimmered like stars. Behind her followed three shiny pokemon: a chartreuse fearow, a ruby liepard, and a gold-and-periwinkle milotic. All four of them sparkled as they walked.

"Good evening Montana! Are you ready for a very special edition of Shining Time?" she called out to the audience. It roared back.

"I thought so! Let's bring out our special guest for this evening!" She gestured stage right, and a slim man with a ruddy face and a sandy-colored suit stepped out and tipped his hat to the crowd.

"Stantler! Stantler!" the fawn called, standing up in her seat.

"Get down!" I hissed. "You're blocking other people's views!"

She didn't move, so I pushed her butt down and forced her to sit. "Now stay!"

She snorted in response.

The man was now sitting on a chair opposite Natalya and her trio of shiny pokemon.

"So Mr. Jacobs, tell us a little about yourself."

Mr. Jacobs stared nervously at the nearest camera. "Yes Ma'am. My name is Roland Jacobs, I'm a breeder based here in Montana, and I specialize in eevee and lillipup."

"Fascinating! And who are your main customers?"

Mr. Jacobs' face was stoic. "The lillipup are bought mostly by hunters and police officers looking for a tracking pokemon. The eevee are bought by city folk looking for a pet."

"I see! So Mr. Jacobs, I understand something very special happened to you a few months ago. Care to tell the audience what it was?"

The poor man's face got even ruddier, and he mumbled something under his breath.

Natalya looked concerned. "I'm afraid I couldn't hear you darling, could you repeat that?"

"I bred a shiny."

"A lillipup?"

"No ma'am. An eevee."

The audience was silent for a few seconds. Then it exploded.

Everyone was standing in their seats, hooting and hollering like loudred. The stantler got caught up in the excitement and was hopping up and down. I grabbed her around the neck to make her stop, but it wasn't until Snow turned and shot her the side-eye that she finally settled down.

Once the cheering had abated, Natalya turned and gave her audience a pregnant stare. "I think it's..." she trailed off and, ever so slowly, started to clap her hands. The audience finished for her, clapping all the while: "SHINING TIME! SHINING TIME!"

Mr. Jacobs quietly acquiesced, pulling a silver plated pokeball from his pocket and tossing it into the air, releasing a silver furred, fluffy eevee with an everstone-set silver collar. She did a little hop and and gave the audience her cutest smile. "Vui~!"

Waves upon waves of "Awwwwwws" echoed throughout the theater-the eevee was a born performer.

"This is Satin," Mr. Jacobs said gently as the crowd quieted again, "She's my pride and joy."

"As well she should be!" Natalya beamed. "Look at this little beauty ladies and gentlemen, isn't she just a darling?"

The audience applauded again.

"So, do you have any plans for Satin? Are you going to keep her? Sell her?" Natalya looked like she could barely contain herself.

"I've already sold her, ma'am."

Murmurs from the audience.

"To whom?" Natalya's eyebrow rose.

Mr. Jacobs looked her dead in the eye. "To you."

And the crowd's loudred cries evolved into the din and boom of exploud.

"That's right!" Natalya crowed above the ruckus. "Meet the newest member of the Shining Time cast, Satin the eevee!" at this she pointed to Satin, who chased her tail and sent sparkles flying into the sky.

The stantler was intrigued by the sparkles and I could see her muscles tighten and her hooves clench. No. There would be no Frisking the celebrity shiny on national tv. I hooked my arms back around her neck as tightly as I could and screamed at my fawn not to Frisk. But either she didn't hear me or she didn't care, and she took off in the direction of the stage. She'd almost made it to the edge of the pit when when a Thunder Wave surged through both of us and froze her in the aisle and me to her neck.

"Pha!" I heard Snow's angry yell behind me, and I silently thanked the Unown that I'd been given a starter who knew how to stop others in their tracks.

Meanwhile, the show was wrapping up, but not before Natalya dropped her biggest bomb of the night.

"Alright ladies and gentlemen, you've met Satin the eevee, but the question remains: what will her final form be? Which of the rainbow of choices will she become?" At this, a group of stage hands in silver suits pushed eight gleaming pedestals to the forefront of the stage, each one topped with an evolutionary stone signifying one of eevee's final stages and engraved with a silhouette of the form. "Cast your vote for your favorite choice, and we'll be back to welcome you to the New Year with a LIVE SHINY EEVEELUTION! But before then, please look beneath your seats and open the bag, you'll find that for a special Holiday gift I've given each and every one of you a replica of Satin's silver pokeball! Use it to catch a shiny of your own, or give it to a pokemon that brings out the sparkle in your eyes! Until then, I hope you have fantastic holidays, and I will see you...IN THE NEW YEEEAAAR!"

The standing ovation after Natalya's final announcement lasted three minutes, and because I was paralyzed to the stantler, I couldn't participate in any of it. Snow applied a Paralyz Heal to both of us in time for me to drag the stantler out of the way of the exiting crowd, and Peanut placed our four gift bags on top of my seat. I pocketed the silver balls, having already decided that they'd be my family's gifts that year, and asked Snow to watch the Stantler as we made our way backstage.

I had no sooner entered the Green Room than Satin lept into my arms and started licking my face. "Eevee ee ee veeeee!"

I chuckled, and scratched her behind her ears a bit. "You were great out there!"

"It's what she was bred for," Natalya appeared, a glass of champagne in her hand, "and it wouldn't have been nearly as amazing if you hadn't saved our girl and kept our secret." She ruffled Satin's fur. "Thank you again for your help, I hope you enjoyed the show and I look forward to trying to repay you in the future. In the meantime, all of you help yourselves to food and sparkling cider, I need to go mingle. Oh, and that stantler's very cute," she winked. "Such a misunderstood pokemon!"

Once Snow had assured me she could look after the stantler and Peanut had promised to eat no more than six plates' worth of food, I let my pokemon scatter to the wind, or more accurately, the buffet tables. Meanwhile, I grabbed a glass of sparkling cider and collapsed into a chair. All things considered, this night was an entertaining, if exhausting, success.

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Natalya's next show aired on New Year's Eve in the same theater as before. She'd reserved the same seats for my team and me, with the request that I either find a way to control my stantler or have her stay in the hotel room this time. Since she'd indicated that she wanted to come, I opted for the former: we arrived early so that Snow could paralyze my stantler in her seat to prevent her from moving anything apart from her eyes, and only healed her once the theater was nearly empty.

As the introduction sounded and the curtain rose, multicolored lights-one color each for the different evolutions of eevee-scanned the audience before all coming to focus on an amorphous silver blob that turned out to be Satin resting in the arms of a massive-silver-furry-overcoat wearing Natalya. The pedestals with the stones symbolizing each evolution were arranged underneath a screen showing the cumulation of votes over the past week. So far vaporeon appeared to be winning, but both umbreon and sylveon were rapidly closing the gap.

Natalya greeted the crowd with her usual aplomb, minus the flamboyant arm flourishes that might have caused her overcoat to reveal the outfit underneath. And as the numbers tallied behind her, a second, massive screen recapped the highlights of that year's show, along with brief snippets about where the people and shiny pokemon were now. The teenager on the cruise ship whose magneton had aimed a thunder at a hariyama only to miss and knock a green wingull out of the sky had evolved him into a celadon pelipper who'd proved to be quite the capable battler. The engineer who'd gone on safari to catch a phanpy for his daughter's birthday only to discover a second, shiny specimen mere minutes after capturing the first had opted to give the shiny phanpy to his daughter and raise the normal one as his own. They'd also discovered that the phanpy were siblings, which had eased their transition from Kenyan wildlife preserve to Parisian apartment considerably. Finally, the ever elusive shiny abra who'd been spotted by a dozen trainers all over the world had finally been captured, and by a child no less. The kid had been training his budew's Poisonpowder by aiming at his father's golbat when the abra appeared just a few meters away. Without hesitation, the boy'd commanded his father's golbat to use mean look, and when the abra was unable to escape, had offered him a candy bar if he agreed to join the boy's team. Several people who'd spotted the abra gave interviews wishing they'd known that candy was the answer, but all of them wished the boy luck and admitted that his quick thinking had played a pivotal role in allowing him to capture the abra.

All the while, the numbers for each evolution climbed higher and higher. Vaporeon had long since faded away in likelihood, and it had quickly become apparent that jolteon, flareon, leafeon, and especially glaceon had no chance whatsoever of winning. It was between umbreon and sylveon, until the last day's stats were finally tallied and sylveon beat umbreon by a mere five hundred votes.

All of the spotlights were extinguished save a single blue one that stayed focused on the host and her newest shiny pokemon. The cameras zoomed in as Natalya gingerly removed the everstone collar from Satin's neck and handed it to a waiting aide. Then, she reached out and touched Satin lightly on the head. She started glowing immediately.

I couldn't tell if it was natural or a result of evolving on a carefully lit stage, but Satin's evolution was the brightest I've ever seen. For those few moments, it was like staring at the sun because you know there's a legendary pokemon flying in front of it: way too bright and probably going to do a bit of damage to your eyes, but still completely worth it to stare for as long as you could.

The glowing stopped to reveal two periwinkle figures: one human, one pokemon. Satin had evolved into a blue, ribbonheaded sylveon, and Natalya had shed her furry coat in favor of a frilly pastel frock that perfectly complemented her pokemon's new form. The two did a little choreographed dance to the beat of the thunderous applause before Satin hopped on Natalya's shoulder and both of them blew kisses to the cameras, wishing audiences everywhere a New Year as bright as Satin's evolution.


	22. Cutting a deal

As she grew, Mayhem stayed true to her name. Whether is was tipped over food, broken furniture, or the time she accidentally trampled a car, disaster followed in her wake. It was never intentional of course, but that didn't mean there weren't consequences. Most of the money my team made at this point was going toward fixing May's mistakes, and it was starting to get on everybody's nerves.

It was around the time May Stomped the washing machine that Natalya invited me to accompany her to a pokemon showing. Her second son, Manfred, was three, and she'd been visiting various shows to talk with breeders about an appropriate starter pokemon. And since Manfred was particularly fond of Snow, we could come along so I could search for a solution while Snow babysat to make some washing machine money.

The showing was enormous. Breeders, trainers, groomers, chefs, and pokemon of all sorts were milling about a massive warehouse brimming with stalls and displays. Outside, several massive arenas showcased riding competitions, precision performers, and good old one-on-one battles for a throng of cotton candy and popcorn eating spectators. While Snow took Manfred to get snow cones, Peanut and Cy, who was contained in a ridiculous-but effective-water bladder strapped around Peanut's shoulders, wandered off to look at the accessories and Natalya made a combee-line for a breeder with a display of white and tan eggs, I went outside to see if there was anyone or anything that might help May.

I didn't think any of the trainers in the battle arena could help, since I'd already tried to improve May's agility by making her dodge Snow's Thunderbolt and Peanut's Air Slash ad nauseum-all it had accomplished was that she now jumped much higher than she had before. Precision performance, too, seemed unlikely to help: so much of it seemed to focus on the flexibility of both the trainer and the pokemon, and May was even less flexible than me. But the riding competitions held promise.

Divided by the type of saddle and bridle used, they were clustered in a group of arenas on the far side of the fairgrounds. On the left were the shows that used English saddles: races, jumping competitions, and dressage, while the right had cutting, roping, and barrel racing, all of which used Western saddles.

At first, it looked like there might have been a single man who was not only competing in both dressage and barrel racing, but winning them. It was only as two of them competed together that I realized I was looking at identical twins: one in English on a gogoat, and the other in Western on a luxray. Also, it didn't take long to guess that looks were probably the only thing they had in common. Both were long and lean, with what looked like short brown hair under their headgear. But the English rider was rigid and controlled while the Western one was, for lack of a better word, spirited. Both were amazing, but I knew as soon as I saw the gogoat stop on a dime from a full gallop that I was going to have to talk to the English rider about teaching May some dressage moves.

As the English twin prepared for another round, I called May out to watch. Technically, she was still supposed to be balled because of the washing machine incident, but maybe she could learn something from the dressage rider and his gogoat.

I should have guessed she'd fall in love with barrel racing.

Man it's been a while. I thought I'd lost my master document (which is where all of my corrections are) and was put off by the thought of remembering every last problem I'd found, but lo and behold! Past me actually thought ahead for once and I found a backup copy about a month ago. That being said, As-Of-Yet-Undisclosed-New-Pokemon's intro appears to be especially a hard for me to write. Here's what I can put out for now, I'm still trying to work on finishing up May's story and transitioning into the new pokemon's.

To everyone who's read and reviewed during this massive hiatus-thank you. It really means the world to me, knowing that what I'm writing makes others happy as well.


	23. Sweethorn

As soon as the events had finished, I tried to recall May, but she jumped out of the way of my every attempt and bolted for the barrel racing course and the man with the luxray. She'd almost reached them when she ran past the entrance to the English arena as the gogoat and his rider were exiting. As if I could have expected her to do anything else, May crashed into them full force, toppling the pokemon and sending the rider flying into the dirt.

I spent the next few minutes or so alternating between apologizing profusely to the English rider and his gogoat, scolding May for being so reckless, and checking her for injuries. Thankfully, the only thing hurt was our pride, though the Dressage Rider was clearly miffed that his outfit was now covered in dust. I tried to apologize and offer to pay for dry cleaning, but he shrugged it off with a dull smile and a murmured "happens".

"Ya keep acting like your starter died every time you get dirt on your shirt, and somebody's gonna hit you with a hydro pump thinking they're doing ya a favor!"

The Barrel Racer had come by to see what the fuss was about, luxray by his side.

"You sure they wouldn't just hit me while trying to wash out your stench? You smell so bad people keep thinking I stink when I'm half a mile out!" Barrel Racer's twin was smiling, his satisfaction at the dig having outweighed the discomfort of the dirty shirt.

"Don't listen to him," Barrel Racer told me, "I smell like a team of roserade using Sweet Scent on a sunny day! See?" With a single deft motion, he wrestled his brother into a headlock. The latter made a gagging noise and waved his hand in front of his nose before shoving his brother away and gasping for fresh air. May took advantage of the confusion to try and Frisk the Barrel Racer, and found herself quickly balled.

"Sorry about all this," I grimaced. Barrel Racer gave a wide smile and, after receiving a quick jab to the ribs, his Dressage brother did too.

"First time watching a show?"

"I was looking for something to help May with her coordination. I let her out for a second and she charged you guys. Sorry again about that."

"She a sweet pokemon?" Barrel Racer asked like he already knew.

I nodded. "A yearling. She's a decent battler, but I've been trying to get her to the point where I can ride her without breaking anything important."

"My brother and I train pokemon for riding. We can add your stantler to the list for three thousand a month and have her competition ready in eight." Dressage Brother bit his lip as he stared at the sky. "The next spot opens up...next month."

"So...twenty four thousand total? That's...what about just the basics? Getting her to the point where she isn't a walking disaster?" I'd done some tallying of my own: their rate was more than everyone on my team made combined, and that was assuming no new May-related expenses came up.

"Basic training takes five months without the pokemon's trainer, and three months with. Rate's ten grand for everything," Barrel Racer replied, "But that's doesn't have to be in cash. Can I see your stantler again?"

I called out May, who immediately stuck her nose in Barrel Racer's face. "Easy there Missy," he chuckled, "Just wanna look at those pretty horns on your head."

May's first set of antlers were still a bit fuzzy and hadn't fully grown in yet, but supposedly they were very well-formed. Hard and sleek, with black pupils that were just the right size to look like a pair of massive eyes were watching you if you looked at them too long. I'd been told they would sell for a lot if I sold them, but in the same breath had been encouraged not to. As the densest and shiniest, the first set of a stantler's antlers were considered the most valuable. Later sets would be bigger, but as the pokemon grew, so too would the hypnotic power of the antlers. Bigger racks were used less as artwork and more as herding devices: mounted at the edge of cliffs or property boundaries, they would safely corral pokemon away from danger and the threat of trespassing.

After stroking the shafts and palming the pupils, Barrel Racer had finished his inspection. He motioned for his brother to join him a few meters away, and for a few minutes they stood with their backs to me. Finally, they turned and Dressage Brother spoke:

"We'll trade your stantler's training for her first set of antlers."


End file.
